Between Tides
by polynya
Summary: Awaiting judgment on charges of desertion for going to Hueco Mundo, Rukia and Renji have been detailed to the Onmitsukidou for an undercover mission in the World of the Living. Now, they're chasing down incorporeal monsters, pretending to be humans, managing restless zanpakutou spirits, and trying to live together under the same roof. Sequel to "See You on the Other Side"
1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

The prologue takes place between Bleach #422 and 423, and then the story picks up in earnest immediately following Bleach #423 (Ichigo loses his powers after defeating Aizen). It's the third part in a series, which is, strictly speaking, canon-compliant, so you don't *have* to read the first two parts, but I do reference them, so... why not? You can find them both on my profile page, (1) Not Broken, Just Bent and (2) See You on the Other Side.

I've been posting this roughly once per week on AO3. I'm catching up here now, and then I should be simul-updating through the rest of the story. Nearly everything is written, it just needs some cleanup, so I should be able to stick to that. It will be 14 chapters, plus one prologue and probably two epilogues.

One million thanks to my brilliant beta reader, Luna12. This story is so much better for all her suggestions, and this author is better for her friendship.

The official album of this story is Neko Case's Hell-On.

Rated T for some Bleach-type violence, references to sex, salty language and general rudeness, as usual.

* * *

Prologue

* * *

"Ummm," Rukia twisted her hands together. "How did it go?"

Hanatarou looked up at the ceiling. "It went… good, I think. We dug out three organs that definitely didn't belong there, replaced his liver, and he was missing a kidney, so we fixed that." Hanatarou scratched his head. "Don't ever let Captain Kurotsuchi re-grow your organs, I guess is the lesson here."

"Are you sure you should be giving me this level of detail?" Rukia asked. "I kinda expected you to just say 'good' or 'bad.'"

"Well, he _did _list you as his 'next-of-kin' on his intake form."

Rukia screwed up her face. "I guess he didn't know who else to put."

Hanatarou blew air out of his cheeks. "He's actually awake right now. The general anesthesia is wearing off. I'm about to give him this-" he held up a horse pill in a little plastic cup, "which is probably going to knock him out again for about 12 hours, and as soon as he wakes up, I'm gonna give him another one. You wanna see him for the only five minutes he's going to be lucid for the next few days?"

"Okay," Rukia agreed, following Hanatarou back into a private room.

Renji lay in bed, his head turned to look out the window. It was a cold, blustery day out, as good a day as any to be cooped up in the Emergency Relief Station. His shitagi hung open over his chest, which was swaddled with bandages, cut off by the sheet pulled up to his waist. His hair was loose and looked a bit of a mess. Rukia had seen him grievously injured before, covered in blood, bruised and battered, but here, in the hospital, all swathed in white, and above all _quiet_, it was somehow _worse. _

"Hello, Lieutenant!" Hanatarou greeted cheerfully. "Look who's here to see you!"

Dazed, Renji turned his head. There were dark circles under his eyes, like he'd been punched. When he saw Rukia, though, a joyful smile spread over his face. "Heeeey!"

"He's still pretty heavily medicated," Hanatarou whispered.

"Hey, yourself," Rukia said softly, stepping up to his bedside. "Hanatarou says they got all the weird stuff out."

"I know," Renji replied, a horrified look on his face. "They _showed _me. It was gross! Healers are so weird. Why would they _show _me?"

"What's your pain level?" Hanatarou asked, ignoring these slights to his profession.

"A two?" Renji guessed.

"That's probably an eight for normal people," Rukia pointed out.

"Oh, I know. We're using the Squad 11 scale for him. Upsy daisy, Lieutenant Abarai, you've got a pill to take."

Hanatarou and Rukia helped him sit up, and he dutifully swallowed his pill.

"You should start feeling sleepy in about 5 to 15 minutes," Hanatarou promised. "Do you want Rukia to stay with you until then?"

Rukia opened her mouth to protest.

"Yuh-huh, please," Renji nodded earnestly. How could she say no to that?

"If he's not out in 20, come get me," Hanatarou informed her. He noted something on the pad of paper hanging at the end of Renji's bed, and then bustled off.

There was a chair in the corner, and Rukia pulled it up next to the bed. "Can I do anything for you?"

"My hair's a mess," he complained.

She frowned. "What do you want me to do about it?"

"Gotta bag around here somewhere. Gotta hairbrush. Can you braid it for me? So I can go to sleep?"

Rukia hunted around and found his overnight bag, complete with hairbrush and some hair-ties. Perching on the edge of his bed, she started running the brush through his long hair, gently teasing out the snarls. It was very soft, silky even. How did it possibly stick up so badly when he had it in the ponytail? Did he _gel _it? Did he do that _on purpose_? She divided it into three parts, and started plaiting. Maybe not the best job ever, but it would keep it out of the way while he slept. His eyelids seemed to be drooping.

"Thanks, Ru," he mumbled. "That feels nice."

She looped the hair-tie around the tail.

"There, all neat and tidy," Rukia said, setting the brush on the bedside table. She started to get up to move back to the chair, and on a complete whim, planted a kiss on his cheek. He blinked, surprised. "For going to Hueco Mundo with me," she said pleasantly.

He screwed up his face, trying to look angry and mostly looking petulant. "I wen' all the way t'Hueco Mundo w'you and had to meet Dondochakka an' got my organs broke, I shoul' getta kiss on the face. Mouth face."

Rukia's eyes went wide. The audacity! She glanced out the open door for activity in the corridor, but this wing seemed pretty deserted. She got up on one knee on the bed. "Fine, you cheeky bastard." She took his face gently in her hands, and lowered her lips to his. The kiss on the cheek had been chaste and closed-mouthed, but this one was not. Even though she was quite sure he was about to pass out, he kissed her back soundly, eagerly. She slid her fingers up the lines of his jaw, scratchy with stubble. His breath was stale and his mouth was dry. She didn't care. They had almost died and they hadn't. They were alive and their friends were alive and she didn't know what was going to happen tomorrow, but at least there was going to be a tomorrow.

His head was starting to get heavy in her hands, and she realized he was fading. Pulling away, she scooted the pillows back into place, and helped him lay down more comfortably. He was definitely having trouble keeping his eyes open now. He mumbled something she wasn't able to catch. "Sleep well," she told him, pulling the sheet up to his chest, and letting her hand linger on his shoulder. "I'll see you soon."

Two weeks later, Rukia stood by another bedside, and this time, watched a spiky-haired boy wake up instead of fall asleep. They spoke. He wanted to stand up and walk outside. They spoke some more. This time, it was not "I'll see you soon." It was "good-bye."

~Begin


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

* * *

Rukia stepped back through the senkaimon, letting the familiar reishi-rich air of Soul Society wash over her. It was done. She would not be returning, not anytime soon, and if she did, it would be for other reasons, other missions. She could visit Orihime or Chad, or even Ishida, sure, but that somehow seemed cruel. To Ichigo or to herself, she couldn't say. She let out a huge sigh, and it came out as a sob.

"It's over?"

Rukia started. She hadn't realized someone was waiting for her. Her captain stood off to the side, just out of her peripheral vision. "Y-yes, sir," she replied. "He's just a human now. I let him keep the badge. You said he could."

Ukitake nodded. "Of course." Her captain took a deep breath. "Look, Kuchiki. I hate to do this, especially right now, but it can't be helped."

She frowned at him.

"We've been summoned before the Captain-General."

He meant that she had been summoned, and he would be required to witness.

"Let's go then," she said, her voice shaking with grief and absurd laughter. "What better time?"

* * *

Everyone else was waiting for them. Rukia looked around the room, trying to make sense of what was going on.

The Captain-Commander stood at the head of the room, Soi Fon at his side.

Renji faced them.

Her brother stood off to the side, as though he were attending a captains' meeting. Captain Ukitake took up a position opposite him. There was something in Brother's hand, some small bundle of cloth and wood.

She glanced at Renji. He was still on reduced duty, recovering from the surgery to repair all the damage he had sustained in Hueco Mundo. He stood tall and stiff, but his face was drawn, and she knew he was far from 100%. Her eyes drifted to his arm and she realized what her brother was holding. His lieutenant's badge.

Rukia's hand went to her sword hilt. "You aren't taking him _anywhere_!" she screamed.

Byakuya closed his eyes painfully.

Ukitake clapped a hand on her shoulder. "Rukia, calm down. No one's being taken away."

Renji's eyes met her own, and he made a calm-down motion with one hand. Then he put his other hand on his own sword hilt meaningfully. They had taken his badge but they hadn't taken his sword.

"Why is _she _here?" Rukia continued, gesturing towards Soi Fon. "Are we being thrown in the Maggot's Nest?"

"If you can't calm yourself down, perhaps you will be," the Captain-Commander rumbled.

Rukia's mouth snapped shut.

"Forgive my subordinate," Ukitake interceded. "She has just returned from the World of the Living. Kurosaki Ichigo has lost the last of his powers. I told you it was unfair to do this now."

Renji closed his eyes, too.

"Nothing about this is _fair_, Ukitake," Yamamoto snorted.

Abashed, Rukia took her place next to Renji. "Forgive my outburst, sir," she managed.

The Captain-Commander sighed, and shuffled closer to them. "Kuchiki and Abarai. Abarai and Kuchiki. Is this what passes for troublemakers these days? Dark times in the Gotei indeed. Nevertheless, you two have created a problem for me."

"Sir, with all due respect, if they hadn't followed Kurosaki into Hueco Mundo, he very well might have been killed long before-"

"Shut it, Juushiro. The issue at stake is not what they did or why or whether they should have. The issue is that the new Central 46 thinks I can't control my officer corps, and right now, I don't have the political capital to let off two unrepentant deserters with a slap on the wrist and a wink." He shuffled back and forth. "On the other hand, what could I do with you? If I dismissed you from the corps, you'd no doubt be fomenting rebellion in the Rukon within a week."

"Sir, regardless of her status in the Gotei 13, my sister will remain in my home," Byakuya interrupted.

"Captain Kuchiki, I think you've proven quite clearly that you're incapable of preventing your sister from doing whatever she damn well pleases!" He cleared his throat. "I could have you two executed. Or thrown in jail, as you so helpfully suggested. But I've just lost a big chunk of my captain-class, and I can't spare two more."

"Sir, I'm unseated," Rukia corrected.

His gaze pierced her through. "Currently, so is the tall gentleman with bankai immediately to your left." Renji gritted his teeth. "You killed an Espada solo, Kuchiki- something not one of my vice-captains, and few of my actual captains managed to do. I ought to be yelling at you to take the lieutenant's exam, rather than for this garbage." He made a low, frustrated noise in his throat. "Fortunately," he went on, "Captain Soi Fon has come forth with a potential solution."

All eyes turned to Soi Fon, who did not look particularly happy to be of help. "I have a deep cover mission that would benefit from a pair of high level shinigami with your particular experience. The details are classified and highly sensitive." She did not go on.

"You would both be placed on indefinite administrative leave from the Gotei 13, and transferred to the Onmitsukidou," Yamamoto clarified. "Which, on paper, is the same status we place on those who are sent to the Maggot's Nest. This mission is slated to last several months. By the time you return, Central 46 will likely have grown bored of hassling me, accept that you've been adequately punished, and we can reinstate you both."

"This is not acceptable," Byakuya immediately replied, winding up into a full-blown Kuchiki Speech. "Rukia is a _Kuchiki _, she will not be treated like a common criminal-"

"I'll go," Rukia interrupted cooly. "It will be fine, Brother."

"Me, too," Renji jumped in, eager to sound accommodating. "Thank you, Captain-Commander! Thank you, Captain Soi Fon!"

"Excellent," Yamamoto sighed, clearly tired of this whole business. "Soi Fon, they're all yours." He started for the door.

"Wait!" Renji called. "Can't we say goodbye to anyone?"

"This mission is _highly _classified," Soi Fon repeated. "We can't have you telling anyone where you're going. Or even _that _you're going."

"You're welcome to say goodbye to anyone currently in this room," Yamamoto shrugged, exiting.

Rukia's eyes darted back and forth between her brother, her captain, and Renji. She had said goodbye to Ichigo _less than an hour ago_, and now this.

Renji finally broke the awkward silence. "Umm, Captain. About my quarters."

"No one will touch your quarters."

"But what about your new vice-captain?"

Byakuya's hands tightened on the badge in his hands. "It is a tremendous bother to train a new vice-captain. I will make do until your return."

"Good luck, Kuchiki," Captain Ukitake offered. "I won't be getting a new vice-captain before you return, either." Rukia's cheeks flushed.

"Are you two ready, yet?" Soi Fon grumbled. "I don't have all day."

"Just one more minute, please," Rukia begged. Throwing forty years of restraint to the wind, she threw her arms around Byakuya's midsection. He was startled by the sudden movement, and it was a moment before she felt his hands awkwardly patting her back. "Goodbye, Byakuya." Then, very softly, so only he could hear, she murmured into his silks, "I love you."

Byakuya stiffened, his fingers clutching at her kosode. "Don't go. I will convince the Captain-General-"

"It's just a mission," she reassured him. "Renji will be with me. We'll be _fine_." She gave him one last tight squeeze before disengaging. "I'm ready."

Renji gave a bow to his now-former captain, and followed Soi Fon. Byakuya watched his sister trot after them. He was not ready in the least.

* * *

Soi Fon characteristically didn't say much as she led them out of the First Division through some back corridors. Neither of them had actually ever been in the Second Division area before. They entered a windowless building, and walked down a long corridor that seemed to be sloping downward.

Rukia felt strangely light, like an untethered balloon drifting skyward. She should feel sad, she should feel scared. Instead, she felt like she had been cut free of her old life, free of the reminders of Ichigo around every corner, ready to start something new. She glanced at Renji out of the corner of her eye, and he returned a weak smile.

"In here," Captain Soi Fon announced, shoving open a door that looked like all of the other doors in the corridor. Inside was a long, plain table and a few uncomfortable-looking chairs.

"Is this an interrogation room?" Renji asked skeptically.

"It's what we've got," Soi Fon replied testily. She waved them in, and slammed the door shut behind her. "Sit." They sat. "This is not exactly a done deal," she growled. "It takes specific skills and a certain temperament to succeed in the Onmitsukidou, and let me just say that I'm a little skeptical that a Kuchiki princess and a Squad 11 lunkhead are going to cut it around here." She frowned. "We're going to give you an evaluation. If you pass, you'll go through a few weeks of training and mission prep."

"What if we don't pass?" Rukia asked, suspiciously.

Soi Fon shrugged. "We've always got floors that need mopping around here, I suppose. In any case-"

"_Hey, chumps_!" The door was flung open.

"Yoruichi!" Rukia and Renji exclaimed in unison, their faces lighting up.

Soi Fon's eyes narrowed. "You interrupted."

Yoruichi was unperturbed. "Whatever," she waved a hand dismissively. "I have bet Soi Fon a rather large sum of money (for her, anyway) that you two are going to ace this dumb exam of hers. I think she's trying to neg you into doing poorly."

Soi Fon disputed none of this.

"Go set up your obstacle course," Yoruichi shooed her out of the room. "I want to talk to my precious son and daughter, here."

Soi Fon left, shaking her head and muttering.

"Toodles!" Yoruichi warbled, slamming the door shut again. She leaned forward on the table. "How you kids holding up?"

"Starting to get whiplash," Renji admitted.

"You don't look so good, Freeloader," Yoruichi informed him. She frowned. "You're not even recovered from Hueco Mundo, are you?"

"I'm fine," Renji muttered.

"It can't be helped, I suppose," Yoruichi crossed her arms. "Fortunately, this evaluation is more mental than physical. Kuchiki?"

"Ichigo's powers are gone," Rukia replied, as if this were relevant to their present situation.

"Yeah, I know," Yoruichi admitted. "And even if I didn't, I could have guessed. The Old Man would never have pulled this on you when there was still a chance of Ichigo coming down on him like a load of bricks."

"We deserted of our own will," Renji pointed out. "We knew this might happen. Well. Not this, exactly."

Yoruichi looked deeply skeptical. "If you're going to make it through this mission, you're going to need to get about 1000% more paranoid. You think Yamamoto didn't know you were going to disobey his orders when your friends were in danger? You think he didn't issue that order, _just so you would break it_?" She crossed her arms. "You two are getting powerful enough that people are going to start using you for pawns. Do not forget that."

"You being one of those people?" Rukia guessed.

Yoruichi put one hand against her chest, shocked. "Rukia!" Then, she smiled her usual cat-like grin. "_ I _know that you're worth bishops at least. Maybe even rooks. Anyway," she cracked her knuckles. "I wanted to let you know that you've got _someone _looking out for you. Just go along with whatever hoops Soi Fon wants you to jump through for now, and I'll see you soon. I have the utmost confidence in you."

* * *

"What. The. Hell." Soi Fon slammed two packets of paper on the table. Renji and Rukia jumped. They were back in the interrogation room after a long afternoon of one inscrutable test after another, from walking on tightropes to solving cryptograms.

"Did we pass?" Renji asked gingerly.

Soi Fon snatched the papers up again. "Lock-picking! 7 out of 10! Observation of a crowded scene! 10 out of 10! Pick-pocketing! 8 out of 10! Stealth movement! Kuchiki, perfect score! Abarai, you're six-frigging-feet tall and your hair is neon pink and you scored an 8 out of 10!"

"Six-two," he corrected.

Soi Fon scowled. She was very good at scowling. "Why didn't either of you take the aptitude test at the Academy? Why aren't you both _already in _the Onmitsukidou?"

"I was pulled out early," Rukia explained. "I never made it to Career Day."

"I was only interested in the Gotei," Renji added.

Soi Fon shook her head. "_How_?"

"Street kids," they answered in unison.

Soi Fon closed her eyes painfully. Yoruichi was always telling her to take the ones from the lower districts. "Are you telling me… you taught yourself most of this?"

"We learned a lot of it from other kids," Renji explained.

"If you don't learn that stuff, you end up dead," Rukia went on. "So obviously we wouldn't be here if we weren't any good at it."

"I felt pretty rusty, to be honest," Renji said, rubbing the back of his neck. "That tumbler lock took me over three minutes."

"Renji!" Rukia scolded.

"It's not like I still practice! Do you still practice?"

Rukia shrugged noncommittally.

"Well," said Soi Fon. "Congratulations. You're both on the mission. We've got three weeks to knock the rust off and get you immersed in your cover story, before we ship you off to the World of the Living."

"The mission is in the World of the Living?" Rukia gawped.

"Yes, of course. Why else do you think we wanted _you_?" Soi Fon tapped one finger on her arm. "We have agents who have spent longer there, but there are very few shinigami who have lived among and interacted with humans at all, let alone as much as you two have. Kuchiki, I have been informed that you know how to use computers?"

Rukia raised one eyebrow. "I…can do some things on computers." She knew how to feed a Neopet and how to send someone a link to "Never Gonna Give You Up" disguised as a link to something else, if that counted for anything.

"Good. Come with me. I'll deliver you to the man in charge of your training."

* * *

"Oh, no," Rukia groaned when she saw the nameplate on the office door.

"Stop whatever gross thing you're doing, I'm coming in," Soi Fon shouted, before opening the door without knocking.

"Greetings, Captain," Omaeda Marechiyo boomed, standing at his desk. There was a magazine sitting open in front of him. Rukia was careful to not look closely at it.

"Here are those big guns I promised you," Soi Fon announced, tossing their folders on top of the magazine. "You're going to have to re-do their training schedule, I'm afraid."

"No problem, I haven't actually started it yet." His eyes took on a calculating glint as they scanned over Rukia and Renji.

"Omaeda is the Commander of the Patrol Corps, so you'll be under him," Soi Fon explained.

"I can't believe you got the Captain-Commander to give them to you," Omaeda appraised.

"They may have lost their rank, but I'm still pretty sure either one of them could put you in the ground," Soi Fon snapped back. "I suggest you don't abuse your authority for once. I won't have any sympathy if you come crying to me with any black eyes or broken noses." She turned her steely gaze back to Rukia and Renji. "That being said, he's your commanding officer, and you'll do what he says, or you'll answer to me, got it?"

"Yes, ma'am," they replied in unison.

"That's it, they're yours," Soi Fon shrugged, and departed.

"Have a seat!" Omaeda offered, gesturing to a couch on the wall facing his desk. It was black and vaguely shiny. They sat. It was deeply uncomfortable and very low. The latter worked out fairly well for Rukia, but Renji couldn't really figure out what to do with his legs, and ended up with his knees around his ears.

Omaeda apparently didn't share an office with his captain, the way most vice-captains did, if this was even actually an office. It looked more like a gambling hall, covered in gaudy decorations and crammed with paraphernalia that appeared to be related to his family business. There was a large tank containing a tarantula.

Omaeda came around the front of his desk, and leaned on it, looking down at them. Way down. "This is what you cowards get for running away while the rest of us were fighting Aizen," he informed them loftily.

Rukia raised one eyebrow. "You do know we were in Hueco Mundo, fighting Espada with Kurosaki, right?"

Omaeda shrugged. "I know my service record has a commendation for exceptional courage, and yours have 'deserter' written in big red letters on them. That's what comes from hanging out with punks like Kurosaki."

"He _defeated Aizen_," Rukia exploded. "We'd all be dead now, if not for him! What is _wrong _with you?"

Renji put his hand on her arm. He was pinching the bridge of his nose, as though he had a headache, which to be fair, he very well may have had. It was also a message, one of a thousand secret gestures and signals and code words they had devised in their youth, this one meaning "Cool it, there's no victory in pissing off this person." Rukia's eyes widened and her mouth snapped shut. She remembered quite well the day, a few months after entering the Academy, that he had informed her in no uncertain terms that he had no use further use for secret languages or sneaking around, and would be facing all his problems head-on from that day forward.

Omaeda's eyes darted back and forth between them.

Rukia gritted her teeth. "Pardon my outburst. Sir."

"Glad to see you've remembered your manners, Kuchiki," Omaeda gloated. He squinted at Renji. The lieutenant of the 6th was not known for keeping his opinions to himself. "You got anything to say, Abarai?'

Renji shrugged. "Not really. Please go on."

Omaeda continued to harangue them briefly, which segued into a lecture about how hard he was going to kick their butts, but he had trouble hitting his stride, and it was obvious that their indifference had largely taken the wind out of his sails. "You guys hungry?" he finally asked. "It's okonomiyaki night."

"That is literally the only good news I have gotten all day," Rukia replied.

"Seconded," Renji added.

* * *

"Here's home sweet home for the next three weeks," Omaeda announced, gesturing to a pair of identical-looking doors.

Rukia and Renji each picked one and slid it open. The rooms inside were spare and identical. A neatly folded pile of bedding in the corner. A low table holding a lamp and a stack of clean shihakusho. A sword rack.

"I'm not sure whose is whose," Omaeda said boredly, digging a finger in his ear. "You can probably tell from the clothes."

"We'll work it out," Rukia replied dryly.

"I'll come get you for breakfast at 6 sharp," he hollered, starting down the hall.

"We don't have clocks!" Renji yelled back. Soi Fon had confiscated their soul pagers earlier. "There aren't even windows!"

"I'm sure you'll think of something!"

Rukia held up a kosode from the room on the left. It came down to her ankles. "These are yours," she informed him. "At least, I hope so."

"Good detective work," he congratulated her, walking into the room. He pulled his zanpakutou out of his sash and settled it on the sword rack, then started shaking out the futon.

Rukia futzed with the jacket, taking too long to fold it back up.

Renji watched her trying to line the sleeves up. "You okay?"

"Huh?" she said, and realized what she was doing. "Oh. Um. Sorry. You've gotta be really tired, I'll go-"

"Today might have been the weirdest day of my entire life, and you started the morning in the World of the Living."

Rukia laughed nervously. "It's funny, because Ichigo isn't a substitute shinigami anymore, and I'm not- I'm not-"

He crossed the room in about two steps, and put his hands on her shoulders. "Rukia, look at me."

She looked up into his tired, haggard face.

"We're still shinigami. And we're still together. That's what you wanted, right?"

They had stood just like this once before, the day that- the day that-

"Isn't it what _you _want?" she asked, her voice going a little shrill.

On that day, she had firmly removed his hands from her shoulders and walked out of his life. On this day, he let go of her shoulders himself, and pulled her to his chest in a crushing bear hug.

"There are some other things I'd like, sure," he replied. "But if I can only pick one, you're it."

Her arms crept around him, and she buried her face in his kosode. "I don't know how to feel," she whispered. It occurred to her that she had gripped her brother in nearly the same way about a million hours earlier. There had been no question about how she felt, then.

"You don't need to," he told her. "Not right now, anyway. You should get some sleep, though. I have no idea what they're gonna put us through tomorrow."

She almost- _almost _asked if she couldn't drag her futon in here with his, if they couldn't sleep tangled around each other, like they had as children. They'd never hear the end of it if Omaeda found them like that in the morning.

"Okay, you, too," she agreed. Giving him one more gentle squeeze, she departed for her own room. She spread out her own futon next to the wall that adjoined his room, and settled in, imagining she could hear his deep, steady breaths. Just as she was starting to drift off, there were a series of taps on the wall, one long, followed by four short. Rukia grinned. Who else would it be? She tapped her own pattern back, four shorts followed by one long. There was a pause, and then three shorts. Three shorts didn't mean anything in particular. It meant "all clear." It meant "I'm bored." It meant "are you still there?" It meant "I'm still here."

Smiling, she tapped three times back, then rolled over, and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

~ end part 1


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

* * *

Rukia came awake suddenly to the pattern of taps- two short, two long, two short, two long- that meant "look sharp, someone's coming." Her body responded like it hadn't been fifty years since the last time she'd heard that, and she sprang out of bed, flung on her clothes, and slammed the door open. Omaeda was standing on the other side, his fist raised to knock.

"Good morning, sir!" she chirped.

He scowled, obviously unhappy that they had been ready for him.

She glanced over- Renji was leaning on his own doorframe, smirking.

"Look smart, jack-off," Omaeda growled at him. "Don't forget you aren't an officer anymore."

Renji straightened up and gave him a bow. "Yes, sir."

"Let's go get breakfast," the large man grumbled. "If we get down to the mess early, they have breakfast burritos. We have a busy day ahead of us. Well, you two do. I just have to haul you around."

Rukia and Renji fell in step a few paces behind him. The hallways of the 2nd were labyrinthine and without signage. They would be thoroughly lost if they didn't stick close.

"You didn't sleep at all, did you?" she hissed.

"Not much," he replied. "It was worth it, though, for his face."

"Yeah," she agreed. "Worth it."

* * *

"What was your answer for number seven?" Omaeda asked, consulting the large binder in front of him.

"B," said Rukia. "As I have already told you six times, I guessed B for all of them."

Renji narrowed his eyes. "D. Form XCP2-J36-G, in duplicate, with Exemption J filled out."

Omaeda sneered. "It's A, tell your superior verbally, leave no paper trail."

"You know, you could have just told us that the Onmitsukidou hates accountability and don't document anything before you made us take this quiz," Renji griped.

"For a guy from Squad 11, you sure have a hard-on for paperwork, Abarai."

"I'm from the Sixth," Renji corrected testily.

"Yeah, but you were at Squad 11 for, what, twenty years? You only just got to the Sixth."

"It was 33 years, and I've been at 6 for seven months, thank you, and it doesn't matter, we do things _correctly _at the Sixth."

Omaeda's eyebrows shot up. "Oh, _yeah_?"

"Renji," Rukia warned. "Out of all the things he could possibly goad you into a fistfight over… can it _not _be paperwork? Specifically, my brother's draconian standards for paperwork?"

"The Onmitsukidou is a very special organization," Renji said slowly, through gritted teeth, "and I am sure they have adopted reporting standards appropriate for their needs."

"That's right," Omaeda replied with a smarmy grin. He flipped a page. "Onto the next section: Standards for Interacting with Humans."

"Oh," said Rukia. "I had some _Opinions _on this section."

* * *

After Standards and Procedures, Omaeda led them into a room that seemed a little like a library. Bookshelves lined the walls, and several maps were laid out on tables in the middle of the room. Two shinigami sat at the tables, a man and a woman, each surrounded by notebooks and binders.

"This is Chiba and Mori," Omaeda introduced. "They're going to help you develop your cover story."

"Why don't you just give us one?" Rukia asked.

"A lot of it _is _already determined," Chiba explained. "But for the personal parts, it will be better to involve you in the development. You two are going to need to live and breathe these identities."

Rukia and Renji exchanged a look, and shrugged. "Okay. Sounds fun," Renji said, pulling out a chair.

"It's _important_," Omaeda scolded.

"The first thing you need to know is that you can't just be yourselves, you will be taking on new identities. There is a suspicion that the Hollow you are tracking down may be connected in some way back to Soul Society, and we don't want you to be recognized. It'll be uncomfortable, but you'll have to wear gigais that don't match your actual appearances, and you'll have to take on false names."

"Why are you grinning like that, Omaeda?" Renji asked warily.

"Oh… just looking forward to the next part."

Mori sighed wearily and looked irritated. Chiba plowed on stoically. "Sorry if this comes as a surprise, but you'll be posing as a newly married couple."

Omaeda was practically beside himself.

"Figured as much," Renji shrugged.

"_What_?" Omaeda yelped. "It's supposed to be awkward and embarrassing!"

"It seems like the easiest way to explain living together and having a lot of private conversations," Rukia frowned. "It's not like it's the first time we've pretended to be married."

"What_ what_?" Omaeda was really losing it.

"You've never pretended to be married to a friend?" Renji asked, terribly sincere. "To make travel easier? Or to get a discount? Or, y'know, to scam someone?"

"_No_!"

Mori raised an eyebrow.

"Do you want me to be pregnant?" Rukia offered. "It's been awhile, but I am _pretty good _at faking a pregnancy. It's great for smuggling things."

"I… don't think that will be necessary, and it might get awkward depending on the length of time you're there," Chiba frowned. "I'll, uh, make a note, though."

"Maybe we could come up with some names?" Mori suggested. "You're going to need to respond to them seamlessly. We can pick something close to your own names, or if you have a nickname that-"

"Satonakas?" Renji asked Rukia.

"Oh, yeah," she replied. "Satonaka Tomoe."

"Satonaka Takeru," Renji added.

"That's not anything like your real names," Omaeda griped.

"That's our married people name," Rukia explained. "Well, one of them. But we've had a lot of luck with the Satonakas."

"I once got a grocer to give me a full crate of fruit as Satonaka Takeru," Renji bragged. "For my poor, sick wife. Nothin' gets people feeling sympathetic like a tiny pregnant woman with a huge husband."

"I conned a guy out of 5,000 kan for a transportation pass as Tomoe," Rukia added. "I had to get Takeru out of town, because he had killed the local mob bosses' brother."

"What is _wrong _with you people?" Omaeda exploded.

"I think I speak for the three of us," Chiba announced, ignoring his vice-captain. "When I say that I think we're really going to enjoy working with you."

* * *

"I'm Iwasaki, your kidou master," the steely, middle-aged woman introduced herself.

"Y'know," Omaeda interrupted. "Captain said there's no need for you to do all the same training. Abarai, I think we all know you're wasting your time here, if you'd rather go work on concealed weapons or something, instead."

"What kind of kidou are we doing?" Renji asked, ignoring him.

Rukia was a little surprised. Usually, he was all too eager to shirk kidou practice.

"Not what you might think," Iwasaki replied. "Chiisaido. The so-called little spells. Setting and breaking magical locks. Detecting and disarming traps. Covering your tracks. Hiding things. They don't take much power, but they do take a lot of finesse."

"I'll stay," Renji declared.

"I'll be standing over here, then," Omaeda announced, throwing himself in a chair in the far corner of the room.

After an hour of work, Rukia realized, with growing horror, that Iwasaki was saying a lot more nice things about Renji's work than her own. When the woman got up to trade out some of the demonstration traps they had been working on, she kicked him under the table.

"Ow!"

"What gives?"

"What do you mean, what gives? Since when are you _not crap _at kidou?"

Renji's face screwed up, and he made an irritated noise in his throat. He leaned forward and spoke quietly, so Omaeda wouldn't hear him. He needn't have worried; the hard-working vice-captain of the 2nd had fallen asleep. "I don't know exactly, but I think it's that I can't throttle large amounts of power properly. These little spells, they're like picking a lock, just a tiny bit of power in the right place." He blew out a huff of air. "Also, you do most of them with your left hand."

"Oh, Renji," Rukia sighed. "Haven't you ever asked-"

"It's a no-go," he interrupted. "Shh, teacher's coming back."

"This one is particularly fiendish," Iwasaki said, excitedly. "I usually save it for advanced students, but I think you're really going to like it."

Renji's face positively _lit up_.

We are definitely in uncharted territory, Rukia decided.

* * *

"Well, good night, you jerks," Omaeda sniffed, dropping them back off at their rooms. "You didn't suck today."

"Thanks, man," Renji replied cheerfully. "That really means a lot coming from you."

"I'll be back for you tomorrow morning."

"I'm already memorized the layout of this building," Rukia told him. "I can find you in the morning if you'd prefer."

"No, you haven't."

She raised one eyebrow.

"Come get us for breakfast, please," Renji said. "I don't believe her, either."

Omaeda nodded, then made a big show of pretending to remember something. "Hey, aren't you guys supposed to be practicing your roles? Where's the good night kiss?"

Renji's brows creased. "Do we have to?"

"Yeah." Omaeda leaned forward. "Do it."

"Okay," Renji shrugged and reached for Omaeda's face.

The larger man jumped back. "You knew what I meant! Argh, _jerks_!" He stomped down the hallway.

Rukia had to lean on the doorframe, her side hurt so hard from laughing. "You have more fortitude than I do," she wheezed. "Oh, he's so gross."

Renji grinned down at her. "Anything for the mission, right?"

Wiping her eyes, she straightened up, and stood on her tiptoes, face tipped up expectantly. Renji leaned down, and planted a quick, firm, very professional kiss on her lips. "Good night, Tomoe, sleep well."

"G'night, Takeru," she replied. "Get some sleep tonight."

He raised an eyebrow. "You got a plan for waking up on time?"

"I do, in fact." She held out one hand, Omaeda's tacky watch dangling from her index finger. "We were supposed to be practicing our pickpocketing, right?"

* * *

"You'll be stationed in the city of Kurage Bay, in Fukui Prefecture. It's coastal, and it gets a fair amount of beach tourism in the summer. Fishing and aquaculture is the dominant industry, primarily through the Wazao Fish Farm. Tomoe, we've arranged employment for you there, as an office worker. You'll have access to their record systems, which we think will help you in tracking suspicious individuals, as well as giving you access to a lot of areas of the town that are owned by the plant." Rukia nodded.

"Takeru, you're recently discharged from the Army."

"Nice," Renji replied. "What'd I do? Desert?"

Chiba frowned at him disapprovingly. "You got a leg nearly blown off fighting terrorists."

"Oh."

"It'll explain the limp," Mori offered.

"I have a limp?"

Mori frowned. "Remember when we said your gigais weren't going to quite match your actual bodies? Well, your heights are kind of… distinctive."

Rukia cottoned on immediately. "_Am I getting a tall gigai_?"

"Well, taller. It's very hard to adapt to a gigai that's not the correct size, we could only make minor adjustments. How does five feet sound to you?"

Rukia's eyes filled with sparkles. "Five feet! I'm a giant!"

Renji looked stricken. "This is discrimination."

"Sorry, Abarai. I won't sugarcoat it, it's worse being crammed into one that's too small. We knocked you down to 6 even. You'll get used to it eventually, but it shouldn't be too hard to walk like someone whose had their leg ripped apart and put back together."

"Anyway," Chiba interrupted. "You and Tomoe have moved to Kurage Bay because of her job opportunity. You're still recovering, which is why you don't have a job. This should give you more time to poke around and track down our Hollow."

"Are you bitter?" Rukia asked. "That I support us?"

"Naw," Renji replied. "I'm real proud of you, finishing college and stuff. You were always way smarter than me."

"Maybe you should consider going back to school," she suggested. "The Army really helped you get your life together. I mean, when we broke up after high school, I didn't think I would ever be willing to take you back-"

"Is all this really necessary?" Omaeda groaned.

"If you have something else to do, Vice-Captain, we can fetch you when they're done," Chiba bit off tersely.

"Who dumped who?" Mori leaned forward.

"Oh, she dumped me, and I deserved it, I was a real dog to her."

"You're too hard on yourself, you were hurting a lot after your dad left."

Omaeda decided to take them up on that offer.

* * *

"Abarai. Kuchiki. Imagine meeting you here."

"Akon!" Rukia exclaimed.

"I thought no one was supposed to know we were here," Renji asked Omaeda.

"No one does," Akon shrugged. "I assumed you two were in lockup, to be honest."

"Does everyone think that?" Rukia asked, her voice small.

"How should I know? I don't hang out with people. It's not a big deal, anyway. Who among us has not done some hard time, am I right?"

"Me," Omaeda volunteered. "I have not."

Everyone else ignored him.

"Anyway, I don't know what you're doing here and I don't care. I'm just here to fit some Onmitsukidou operatives with some Urahara specials. Apparently, they don't fit correctly and we can't use the auto-synch, so this should be fun. And by fun, I mean terrible."

Five minutes later, Renji and Rukia were both very uncomfortable.

"I feel squished," Renji admitted. "I think my calves are cramping." He was sitting on a table, while Akon moved his limbs around.

"Can you scootch a little?" Akon suggested. "Are your toes all the way down in the toes?"

"I'm so taaaaallll!" Rukia trilled, tripping over her feet _again_, and falling face-first onto the floor.

"Kuchiki, stop trying to walk around, I'll get to you in a minute!"

Akon grabbed Renji's ankle and gave a hard tug.

"Aiiiiiieeee!" Renji yelped. "Oh. That actually feels much better."

"Good, because you've got three more limbs to go. And maybe also your head. You think we need to do your head?"

"Yeah, my neck feels pretty scrunched."

Akon started to grab Renji's other ankle, and then thought better of it. "Hold on a minute. Kuchiki, let's get you settled, and then I want you to help me with this, so you know how to do it."

"Are we going to have to do this every time?" Renji asked, rotating his shoulder experimentally.

"Maybe?" Akon was hauling Rukia to her feet. He pulled her hand up to where he could see it. "Wiggle your fingers." She tried. It didn't work so well. Her fingers felt like they were somewhere down in the gigai's palm. "Okay, imagine you're stretching, like taking a really big yawn. Arms and legs and tailbone, stretching out allllll over."

"Ahh!" Rukia gasped as she felt her hands and feet suddenly feel pop into place. She took a few experimental steps, and determined that she'd gotten the left foot in, but not the right. She stretched again, and felt it seat. "Now," she proclaimed, "I am tall."

"You really aren't," Omaeda chipped in from the corner, where he was reading a magazine.

"That was uncalled for," Renji informed him. "Those three inches are important to her. It's like a quarter of her total height."

"Why would you say that," Rukia asked, "to a person who's about to wrench your arm into place?"

"I didn't want you to feel bad about hurting me."

Rukia gave a hard yank. "That's not a problem."

"I don't think that worked," Renji grimaced.

"It needs to be sharper, like this," Akon explained, demonstrating on his other arm. Renji flinched.

Rukia tried again. "Did it work that time?"

Renji nodded, his eyes squeezed shut.

"Can I do his head?"

"Why don't you do his other foot, first? For practice, before you go anywhere near his spinal cord." Akon scratched the back of his head. "I don't know how much you guys are into metaphysics, but maybe this will help a little. We're all dead here, right? We're just souls. Our bodies are formed out of memory and will. Either of you ever had an arm chopped off?"

"Renji lost some internal organs recently," Rukia offered cheerfully.

"Yeah, so a human could never survive that. But our organs are really just there because we feel like they should be there. And we're able to heal a lost limb, because it's actually more normal to have your arms than to not have them, right? You just need to overcome the idea that you saw and felt your arm get chopped off."

"Sounds about right," Rukia agreed.

"You lost me with the organs," Renji admitted.

"You lost me at the beginning," Omaeda added, flipping a page.

Akon thought for a moment. "Abarai, you're a tattoo guy, obviously. How'd you get those stripes on your arms?"

"A guy stuck a needle full of ink in my skin," Renji replied. "Well, sometimes it was a lady. I'm sort of a collaborative effort."

"Yeah, but your body is made of reishi. And the ink is made of reishi. Everything in Soul Society is made of reishi. It's the _ritual _of getting a tattoo that lets you convince yourself that now you have a tattoo. If you were good enough at exerting your own will, you could change your appearance just by concentrating on it hard enough."

"Are there people that can do that?"

"It's nearly impossible. Captain Kurotsuchi is about the best there is at it. But what I'm getting at is this: your soul bodies will stretch and compress. It's possible. We just did it."

"Ahh!" Renji cried as Rukia wrenched his neck into joint. He took a few deep breaths. "Wait, so my soul body is _actually _shorter right now?"

"Yep. And Rukia's is taller."

"If I stay in here too long, will it be permanent?"

Rukia's eyes gleamed.

"Well, here's the thing. When you go in and out, you should try visualizing yourself sort of shrinking and stretching. Just accept that it's part of getting in and out. I think you should be able to convince yourselves that it's just normal, and you shouldn't need all this manual adjustment." He dug around in his bag for some equipment. "I'm gonna check your synch rates and your reflexes. I want you to stay in 'em for about an hour today, and for the next few days. When you're feeling good about that, start doing two hours. You're gonna need to work up to 24 hours a day over the next three weeks, I'm told. I'll come by every couple days to see how it's going."

Rukia walked back around the table so she could see Renji again. "Everything feel good now?"

"Yeah, I think so," he replied. "I still feel... bloated. Over-stuffed."

"I feel kinda heavy," Rukia admitted. "Like I've exercised too hard, and my arms and legs are tired." She studied his face. "You look different."

"_You _look different."

"What do you think?"

In addition to the extra inches, Rukia seemed a little...curvier. No longer boyishly slim. Her features were a little sharper, her nose a little pointier. Her eyes were darker, almost black and somewhat smaller in proportion to her face. Her hair was still dark, but fluffier, cut quite short in the back, with two longer tufts that hung in front of her ears, and bangs. Despite the changes, there was still something fundamentally "Rukia" about her face. She looked kinda tough, but also very cute. Renji had found Rukia to be beautiful since he had first started noticing girls, and he found it fundamentally unnerving how cute he still found her, even in a new body. "I can live with it," he shrugged. "How 'bout me?"

Rukia pursed her lips and considered. She did not care for it. She liked Renji very much the way he was-stupid brows notwithstanding- and wanted no truck with false Renjis. His normally angular face was more proportioned, his jaw more square. His hair was brown (brown!), and while it was still long for a man's, it stopped just above his shoulders. His nose was a tiny bit on the big side, and appeared to have been broken at some point, which she found irritatingly adorable. His frame seemed a bit more compact now, he lacked his usual ranginess. And, of course, the tattoos were gone. "Much improved," she lied. "It'll make it much easier to pretend to be married to you."

"Hey!" he protested.

"Aw, geez, they're making you do that?" Akon groaned, running a scanner over Rukia's head. "Squad 2 is so weird. You guys seem up for some crazy stuff, you should join 12."

"No," they replied in unison.

"We wouldn't make you get fake married," Akon pointed out.

"Your boss put some extra organs in me," Renji rebutted. "I had to have surgery to get them taken out."

"That was your choice," Akon re-rebutted. "I would've kept them. They might have done something interesting."

"I'll take a fake marriage over extra organs, thanks," Renji waved Akon off.

Rukia practiced wiggling each of her fingers as she watched the two of them banter. She wasn't sure which was going to take more getting used to- being in this weird, uncomfortable body, or hearing Renji's voice and seeing his facial expressions come from a stranger.

She wondered if she might actually come to miss The Brows.

As if on cue, Renji punctuated some point he was making with a waggle of his very human, very normal looking eyebrows, framing his very human, very normal, very nice-looking greenish-brown eyes.

Forget The Brows. She could get used to this, after all.

* * *

When they arrived for shunpo training, Soi Fon herself was waiting for them.

"Her Ladyship asked me to train you personally," she explained. "Particularly you, Kuchiki. There are a few tricks that I have developed that are well-suited to our...stature."

Renji snorted.

"I don't have to teach you at all," Soi Fon warned.

"Sorry, ma'am."

"Is shunpo going to be that critical to this mission?" Rukia asked, still trying to eke out some clues as to what they were going after. "We're both already fairly adept at it, and I thought we were going to be in gigais most of the time. Not that I would turn down more training! You're obviously one of the fastest people in Soul Society, and if Yoruichi-"

Soi Fon waved a hand dismissively. "Stop sucking up. Lady Yoruichi just thought it would be funny if you got back from your leave and were faster than your brother. She is absolutely correct, of course."

Rukia considered this. "I'm in."

* * *

"Ugh, this place is so booooring," Rukia groaned.

Renji looked up from the World of the Living novel he was trying to read. To be honest, it was really good, if extremely confusing, and he would've probably been happy to bury himself in it all evening. He'd spent far too many evenings with his nose in a book, though, and not nearly enough of them getting into trouble with Kuchiki Rukia.

He was sitting up against the wall, with his legs stretched out in front of him; she lay on the floor, perpendicular to him, with her feet propped up on his legs, and her hands behind her head. Her manga lay abandoned on the floor next to her.

"This doesn't bode well," he pointed out. "We haven't even left yet, and you're already bored of me."

"I'm not bored of _you_," she protested. "I'm bored of _Squad 2_. There's nothing to do, nowhere to go. Omaeda could at least be merciful and give us some sake. Cripes, we haven't even been outside in a week."

Renji narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. "We could go outside."

Rukia propped herself up on her elbows. "We might get caught," she said in the tone of a person who has never once been caught in their entire life.

"We'll tell them we were practicing our sneaking around." He rubbed his chin. "The question is, how to get outside? I'm pretty sure we're underground right now, although I'm not sure how deep."

"Two stories, I think," Rukia replied. "I've thought about this a lot. The cafeteria has high ceilings, and also, I feel like they would need to vent the stoves and stuff to the outside."

"The kitchens are a really good thought," Renji added. "Because they would also need to get food delivered."

They regarded each other, eyes narrowed, and then, in unison, gave a sharp nod.

"Let's go!"

* * *

"Ahh," Rukia gasped, twenty minutes later, taking a deep breath of cold night air. "Freedom!"

"Move it, your foot is in my face!" Renji grumbled behind her.

Rukia hefted herself out of the vent, landing neatly on her feet. A moment later, Renji tumbled out after her, landing on his butt.

"Nice!" he exclaimed, looking up at the night sky, as she came over to give him a high-five. "I definitely forgot it was December, though."

"Yeah, it's a little cold up here," Rukia observed, also gazing skyward. It was overcast, but there were a few stars here and there. The temperature had definitely taken a dip in the past week. She glanced over at Renji, who was rubbing his arms. "We don't have to stay long. I just want a minute or two. You can go back in the vent if you want."

"I absolutely do not want to go back in the vent," he assured her. "I'm starting to get used to being cold, anyway."

She furrowed her brows at him. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Renji pushed himself to his feet. "Well, we've, ah, been together a lot lately. Fighting. Training. We're like partners."

Rukia was staring at him strangely.

"Fighting partners," he amended. "Sometimes drinking partners. Anyway, you hit me with your dumb ice attacks all the time, that's what I meant. This isn't nearly as bad as that."

Her mouth quirked up, and she stepped closer to him. "That's nice. The partners thing. I like that."

"I like it, too."

She bumped him with one shoulder. "Are you _actually _getting used to the cold?"

"No," he admitted, "Definitely not. But I keep telling myself I am."

She threw an arm around him, as though she were putting it around his shoulders, even though she actually only managed to get it around his elbows. "Here, I'll keep you warm."

Renji snorted through his nose. It wasn't working, Rukia didn't generate very much body heat, but he wasn't going to stop her.

Rukia looked around, trying to appreciate the view, such as it was. "You remember sitting up on the roof of the squat, back in Inuzuri?" she asked. "We used to do that a lot."

"Of course I remember that. What idiots we were. It's amazing some of those piles of garbage even held our weight."

She leaned her head against him. "After all this time, you still can't stop fretting about the structural integrity of the terrible shacks we lived in. Whenever I think of Rukongai, I think of you, patching holes in roofs, stuffing rags in air leaks, trying to shore up weak beams with rocks and branches."

"Really? _That_'s what you remember?"

She shrugged. "You did an awful lot of it. What do you think of?"

"Getting the snot kicked out of me, mostly," he lied after a minute. "Occasionally kicking the snot out of some other poor sap." He had a million terrible memories of Inuzuri, and he rarely thought about any of them anymore. For forty years, those impoverished, violent years had also contained the only times he had been truly happy, the only memories he cared about. When he thought of Rukongai, he thought of watching the stars with Rukia, of running through cool sun-dappled woods with Rukia, of falling asleep with his arms around Rukia, her fingers interlaced with his.

With a start, it occurred to him that for so long, he had this fixed set of memories of Rukia, like photos in a box. Mostly Inuzuri, but also that partial year at the Academy where they hardly saw each other. Even though the last few months had been full of stress and war and pain, they were also full of new memories. Strategizing with Rukia. Cracking wise with Rukia. Fighting side-by-side with Rukia. And he was making more and more memories all the time. Crazy.

"You got all thinky," Rukia observed.

He opened his mouth, trying to think of how to explain it. If he even wanted to. And then he felt a _ping _on the edge of his reiatsu sense.

Rukia felt it a moment after he did. "Someone's coming," she gasped.

Renji already had her by the sash, and tossed her back into the vent, diving in after her.

A minute later, an Onmitsukidou ninja alighted on the roof, looked around, and then continued on her rounds.

* * *

"Look, this is your first time, this is gonna be bad," Akon warned them. "Low expectations. Zero expectations."

Omaeda stood beside him, grinning like a maniac.

They were in a gym, in their gigais, which were dressed in something similar to the gym class uniforms Rukia recalled from Karakura High, except that their t-shirts were emblazoned with cute little black cats with voice balloons screaming "Shop at Urahara Shoten!" Renji had pulled his hair up into a stubby little ponytail, which Rukia would have found utterly charming, except that it revealed that his gigai was sporting an undercut. What the _hell_, Urahara?

"Walk along this blue line," Akon instructed.

Rukia went first, daintily placing one foot in front of the other. Easy peasy. Renji followed, although he did step out once.

"Good enough," Akon shrugged. "Now, same deal, up on the beam."

There was a little gymnastics beam set up, maybe 5" off the floor, surrounded by mats. Rukia, who never missed an opportunity to be even slightly higher off the ground, hopped up on it, in her usual manner. Unfortunately, her gigai did _not _respond in the usual manner, and instead of landing neatly on one foot, the side of her foot caught the edge of the beam. Her arms pinwheeled, trying to correct her balance, and sent her toppling over the side, where she landed on her head, one foot still caught under the lip of the beam.

Omaeda brayed, Renji guffawed, even Akon made an amused snort.

Rukia rolled onto her back and untangled her feet from the beam. "Go ahead, Mr. Grace and Elegance, let's see you do better!" she challenged playfully.

"Oh, it will not be better, it will definitely be worse," Renji laughed, very carefully placing one big foot up on the beam. So far, so good. He stepped up, but as he swung his other foot forward, his upper half swung backwards. He tipped straight over, landing flat on his back. Rukia lost it and Renji started cracking up himself.

"Okay, okay, too soon," Akon grinned. "Get up, we're gonna try something else."

With a great deal of clambering and wobbling and giggling, Rukia and Renji hauled their gigais to their feet. As soon as he was upright, Renji started listing to the right. Rukia reached out to try to keep him upright, and fell into him.

Tears were running down Omaeda's face.

Akon had produced a child's large rubber ball from someplace. "There's no way this is going to go well. Who wants this?"

Rukia tried to wave her hand, lost her balance, and had to take several steps to one side before she was steady again, although she did manage to keep her feet.

Renji just shouted "Me! Me!" Akon threw it to him. He bobbled it wildly for a few seconds and finally managed to hold it still in both hands. "I did it!" he crowed, a huge grin on his face.

"Good job," Akon congratulated. "Now throw it to Rukia."

"I am ready," Rukia announced, very intentionally bending her knees and holding out her arms in a cradling position. She was standing roughly six feet away from him.

Renji threw the ball. It landed on the floor about six inches in front of him. He and Rukia both stared at it.

Renji was consistently the highest ranked player in the Gotei-13 Recreational Futsal League. He attempted to kick the ball. He fell over backwards again, and landed on his butt, howling with laughter.

"I regret that Urahara couldn't be here himself, to witness the performance of his finest creations," Akon smirked.

"Don't you two have any self respect?" Omaeda chided them. They were taking all the fun out of laughing at them by spending so much time laughing at themselves.

"Left it in Hueco Mundo with Dondochakka," Renji announced, rolling over onto his stomach.

"Didn't realize this was such serious business," Rukia said, making a Very Serious face. She ran up to the ball and kicked it, hard. She fell over backwards. The ball hit Omaeda in the face.

"Not bad, Kuchiki!" Akon made a note. "I think we're making progress."

~ end part 2


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

* * *

"The most difficult thing about passing in the World of the Living will be carrying on 'small talk'," Mori explained.

"We have small talk in Soul Society," Renji frowned.

"But you'll have to keep track of all the little differences between the two worlds and the conversational tics, as well as your cover story."

"I am great at talking to humans," Rukia bragged.

"My understanding was that you spent most of your time with a bunch of children?"

Rukia shrugged. "Teens. They sure talked a lot, anyway."

"Adult humans have different conversational patterns," Chiba suggested. "In any case, we're going to practice. If you two nail it, we can move on to other things."

Rukia and Renji exchanged a look. Seemed easy enough.

"Let's start with Renji. Imagine you're talking to me at a social event. We already know each other, but I've never met Rukia."

"Okay. Hi, Mr. Chiba, I don't think you've met my beautiful wife, Tomoe."

"You can just say 'my wife'," Rukia frowned.

"But I want to introduce you as 'my beautiful wife'. How else will he know?"

Rukia elbowed him in the ribs.

"Ah, I didn't know you were married, Mr. Satonaka," Chiba pointedly went on. "How did you meet?"

"She covered for me when I was running from the law."

Chiba sighed. "Okay, I know that's your actual cover story- Mori, why did we let him have that?"

Mori shrugged. "It sounded so good when he was telling it."

"Anyway, so that's actually how you met, we're going with that, fine. Is that what you would tell someone that doesn't know you very well? Or might it be better to say something more neutral, like, 'we met in high school'?"

Renji scratched his head. "That's boring. I would much rather hear a story about outwitting some cops than 'we met in high school.' Then you can say, 'what crime did you commit?' and I can say, 'boxcar graffiti,' and then you might have some opinions on boxcar graffiti, and I can talk about how it's a victimless crime." He thought for a moment. "Or you might want to know more about how Tomoe distracted the fuzz, and that would give her a chance to talk."

"What do you actually tell people when they ask how we met?" Rukia asked, suspicious.

"I tell them you saved me from a botched water burglary attempt. What do you tell people?"

"You tell everyone that?"

Renji frowned thoughtfully. "You know, I did not tell your brother that. I think I told him something very vague and boring like, 'we met in Inuzuri.' Ohhhhhh! I get it! I should talk to adult humans like they're judging us constantly, like Captain Kuchiki."

Chiba opened his mouth and then closed it again.

"Why don't we give Rukia a chance?" Mori suggested. "We've just met at this party, right? And I might say, 'Ah, you must be Mr. Satonaka's wife.'"

"Yes, that's me."

"Do you have any children?"

"That's none of your business!"

Mori frowned. "That's actually a really common question that humans ask each other, particularly women."

"Oh. Okay. Yes, we have four."

"You- you don't. You can't just say that."

"Their names are Ichigo, Orihime, Uryuu, and Chad. My favorite is Ichigo, even though he is also the dumbest."

"You don't have any children! It's not part of your cover story!"

"Okay, okay. I have no children. Takeru got blown up and his plumbing doesn't-"

"You can just say, 'no'! Or 'not yet'!"

Rukia frowned at Renji. "This party sucks."

"No kidding."

* * *

"Okay, I got a candy for whoever goes the longest without falling over!" Akon announced, uncharacteristically cheerful.

"We already told you, we aren't eating any Squad 12 candy," Rukia grumbled.

"Abarai likes them."

"I give them to Omaeda."

"They're really tasty," Omaeda admitted.

"Just start already! Beating Renji is its own reward!" Rukia howled.

"Fine! Stand on your right foot."

Rukia and Renji lifted their left feet.

"Hop on your right foot!"

They hopped.

"Put a finger on your nose! Keep hopping!"

"This is so great," Omaeda noted. "Do you actually have any candy? Can I have some?"

"Switch feet! Turn around! Freeze!"

It was very easy to fall over on the freeze, but they both held strong.

"Do a cartwheel!"

It was also very easy, and somewhat painful, to run into each other while trying to do simultaneous cartwheels.

"Come up in position to cast your favorite bakudou!"

Rukia stuck the landing and ended with the clasped fists of #4, transitioning into the pointed index finger of #61.

"Show off," Renji murmured, his index and pointer finger thrust forward in the gesture for #1.

"Release!"

They both mimed drawing their swords and acting out their releases.

"Both hands on your heads! Forward roll!"

Akon always made them do something dumb after the release.

"Let's see a good dismount… and…"

Renji and Rukia rolled to their feet, and hopped up standing, their arms in celebratory Y's above their heads.

"Nailed it!" Akon announced. "Congratulations! You're synched to your gigais! Candy for Omaeda!"

"Oh, thank goodness," Rukia sighed.

"Really impressive work," Akon complimented them, taking some notes. "You won me 10,000 kan in the pool. Hiyosu thought the gigais would reject you entirely _and _cause brain damage."

"Does this mean we don't have to do gigai gymnastics anymore?" Renji asked hopefully.

"Yup," Omaeda agreed, a huge wad of questionable candy stuffed in his cheek. "From now on, you get to do gigai hakuda. With me."

Rukia looked up (and up) at the 6'11" bulk of the 2nd's vice-captain. "Cool," she replied. "Cool."

* * *

Rukia was already halfway through her dinner when Renji slid into the seat across from her. She eyed the small mountain of food on his tray. "Where've you been?"

"Lost track of time," he replied, chugging a glass of milk.

Rukia was sure she hadn't lost track of a single minute of Intro to Business Studies, which consisted of an Onmitsukidou "expert" on the Living World reading her a college textbook on how to work in an office, and tragically misunderstanding three-quarters of it. Lately, she and Renji did morning training together, and split up for the afternoon. At first, Omaeda had switched between micromanaging one or the other of them, but that had apparently been a short-term transition to full-time shirking. He did show up for hakuda class, which he, himself, taught.

Rukia watched Renji cram food in his face for a few minutes. "Are you taking extra kidou?" she finally asked.

"Hunh?" he startled, some rice falling out of his mouth.

"Gross, Renji. Were you raised in a slum by a feral group of homeless children?" she chided.

Slowly, he finished chewing, and swallowed. "How did you know? About the kidou?"

Rukia took a long sip of tea before answering. "Because your hands are shaking. Also, you hate milk and only drink it when your reiryoku gets too low."

"Kidou is exhausting," he replied, continuing to attack his dinner.

"Especially the way you do it," she replied. "Now seems like a really weird time to finally get interested in it."

"It's not a matter of being _interested_," he replied. "We're gonna have to fight in gigais, which means watered-down hakuda or kidou. I don't feel good about it."

Rukia rolled her eyes. "You've been talking about how much you want to punch a Hollow ever since you started hanging out with Chad. I'll take care of the kidou. We'll be fine."

"That's easy for you to say, kidou is your best skill anyway. You're better at gigai hakuda than me, too. I just can't figure out how to do anything effective when none of my reiatsu can escape the gigai. Maybe this is a sign that I'm too dependent on my zanjutsu, that I need to branch out more."

She had forgotten how _exhausting _Renji was when he was training. He had always had a tendency to over-prepare for their childhood raids. Over the years, this had turned into a relentless drive to be good at everything all at once, ramped up to 11 when there was a mission on the horizon. "I spent two months in one of these things last spring. It just takes practice. Don't over-do it, okay?"

"I have never over-done anything in my entire life." He stuffed another enormous bite of food in his mouth.

"No," Rukia replied archly. "Surely not."

* * *

The days turned into weeks.

They picked locks.

They watched human movies.

They eavesdropped.

They haunted the duct work.

Rukia practiced her typing.

Renji read books about the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force.

They carved shivs out of _everything_.

They made fun of Omaeda.

And then.

They were ready.

* * *

Renji lay in bed. It was their last night in Squad 2. Tomorrow would be the last morning he would have to look at Omaeda's hideous visage. Tomorrow, he would be in the World of the Living. Tomorrow, he would be Satonaka Takeru, human. Satonaka Takeru, combat veteran. Satonaka Takeru, guy with a terrible haircut, and a wife he definitely didn't deserve.

Renji rubbed his face with his hands. Why had he ever thought this was a good idea? Sure, they're played this game before, but for a few hours at a time, usually. A day or two at most. Also, they had pointedly refrained from mentioning it, but he, for one, hadn't forgotten that the time period of their greatest Satonaka cons had coincided with those strange few months of their youth when a few fumbled experiments at kissing had escalated into sneaking around every chance they got in order to feverishly paw at one another. That had stopped abruptly in a wash of grief and guilt when Fujimaru died, the last of their friends. And why was he thinking about this now?

Who was he kidding? He knew exactly why he was thinking about it.

Very softly, three taps echoed from the thin wall next to his head. If he had been sleeping, even lightly, he wouldn't have heard it.

Reaching over, he tapped three times back.

Immediately, the pattern for "I'm coming" echoed back, followed the padding of feet, and the swish of his door. Renji sat up on his elbows, squinting at Rukia's backlit silhouette. She shut the door behind her, leaving them both in darkness. "It's late," he said. "Why aren't you asleep?"

"Why aren't _you _asleep?" she asked, putting her hands on her hips, as if she weren't constantly giving him crap for his insomnia.

"Because everything is changing tomorrow," he replied dryly. "That's my special time for staring at the ceiling." He scowled. "You wanna join me?"

To his surprise, she replied, "Yeah."

As she walked over to his futon, he started to sit up, but she waved him off. "Don't move on my account." She lay down on the floor next to his bed and stared up at the ceiling.

"Don't be dumb, it's chilly." He scooted over close to the wall, and reluctantly, she crawled in next to him. They lay side by side in parallel lines.

"Time runs so strangely in the World of the Living," she said simply.

"Yeah," he agreed.

"From here, it's easy to laugh about humans and their mayfly lives, everything's so intense, every emotion so _important_. But when you're there...it is. Everything is so fragile, so urgent. But at the same time, every day is basically the same. Boring."

"Yeah." Renji remembered Rukia's face, that awful night he had arrested her. There had been something nearly animal staring out from behind her eyes. It had terrified him. That was before he had spent a month of his own life there. It was a strange and maddening place, and he hadn't even spent much time with humans. Chad, primarily, who was about as peaceful and circumspect as mortals got. What were they going to be like after all this was over?

"I think about Isshin a lot," Rukia admitted. "He decided on a moment's notice, to give everything up and live as a human. I wonder if he had gone back to Soul Society and thought about it, if he would have made the same choice."

"Why?" Renji wondered. "What made him stay?"

"Ichigo's mom," Rukia replied simply. "I guess she almost threw her life away saving him, and he felt like he had to return the favor. That he _wanted _to return the favor." She sniffed. "It probably wouldn't have made a difference. It's not like he was known for his thoughtfulness and circumspection in the first place."

They were quiet for a long time. Renji didn't want to ask. He didn't want to know, to be honest. But he felt like she wanted him to ask, so he did. "Rukia...did you ever consider…? Would you have…?" He couldn't bring himself to put it to words, but they both knew what he was asking.

"A few times," she finally said. "Fleetingly. It would have been insanity."

Renji focused intently on the ceiling. "You feel how you feel."

She turned, and studied his profile for a long time, before rolling her head back to stare at the ceiling again. "He has a nice life. He has a good future ahead of him." She clenched her fist. "And dammit, I'm just really worried that he's going to blow his chances with Orihime, he's such an _idiot." _

Renji chuckled. "She's very patient."

"His idiocy could try anyone."

"Eh, they've got Chad to keep them straight. I think they'll get it figured out."

She suddenly turned her head towards him again. "Did Chad say something to you?"

"About Ichigo and Orihime?"

She scowled. "About me."

Renji was glad she probably couldn't see his embarrassed face in the dark. "He asked me once how we met."

"Did you tell him it was a botched water burglary attempt?"

"Weeeellll… I was worried that maybe you didn't want people to know you were from Rukongai, so I just made something up."

"Renji! What did you tell him?"

"It doesn't matter, he didn't believe it. I told him something else the next day, and he didn't believe that, either. I told him so many of them. They were ridiculous. There was one where we were in a circus."

"Oh, Renji!" She shoved him affectionately on the shoulder. "You have to tell me all of them."

"I will. But not now. I think we're gonna have a lot of empty hours ahead of us."

"I'm not too worried about that. You're about my favorite person for wasting time with."

Wasting time was one thing. Drinking after work. Taking a walk on a nice afternoon. Fishing. These things were enjoyable because you were busy the rest of the time, because you had to be around people who wanted things from you the rest of the time. Wasting time with a friend, you turned your brain off and enjoyed being with someone who was interested in your usual nonsense, but didn't need you to say anything at all, if you preferred.

Waiting out something was different. You got antsy. You said things to fill the silence that were maybe better left unsaid. You tried to change things that didn't need changing, for the sake of variety. You _ruined _things. Wasn't that the real reason they had come to the Seireitei, become shinigami in the first place? Because if they stayed alone, together, things couldn't possibly have stayed the same. Something would have happened. Something would have changed between them, whether they wanted it to or not. When they decided to become shinigami, they had taken that into their own hands. They had _decided. _

"When all this is over, I just hope we're still friends," he sighed quietly.

Rukia rolled over on her stomach, throwing one arm over him. "You say some dumb stuff sometimes, but that might be the all-time dumbest."

"Are you going to sleep?"

"Yes, and so should you. Your anxiety brain has obviously taken over, there's nothing to be gained from listening to that nonsense."

"You should go back to your own room, I don't want to hear your snoring."

"Shan't," she replied, stuffing her face into his ribs.

Renji sighed, and gently started rubbing her back. It's not like he was going to get any sleep anyway.

* * *

"My beloved children!" Yoruichi announced, bursting into their favorite interrogation room.

"It's been three weeks," Rukia pointed out cheerfully.

"It has, and you have surpassed everyone's expectations," Yoruichi grinned. "Granted, everyone's expectations were very low. Except mine, of course, I knew better. All your instructors have signed off on you, and Soi Fon is about to come in here and tell you the classified part of your mission. But before she gets here, I need to tell you the even more classified part." She grabbed a chair, and straddled it backwards. "Look, kids. You're taking on a dangerous mission here, dangerous in more ways than one, and it's all under the expectation that you're gonna get a pardon at the end of this."

"That was never guaranteed," Renji pointed out.

"You've gained a little paranoia, Abarai, I like that. The fact of the matter is, the new Central 46 has been sticking it pretty hard to the Old Fart."

"You think he's gonna screw us," Renji suggested.

"I think it's not out of the question," Yoruichi replied, seriously.

Rukia took a deep breath through her nose, and let it out slowly.

"Lucky for you, you've got some friends in low places." She looked at each of them in turn. "Kisuke made those gigais you're be using. Mayuri still hasn't been able to figure out how his reiatsu suppression tech works, let alone duplicate it. If Yamamoto tries to pull a fast one on you two, we'll blow your trackers and help you disappear into the World of the Living."

Rukia and Renji exchanged wide-eyed glances.

"It's just a nuclear option," Yoruichi said, rubbing the back of her hand against her forehead, and then realizing she wasn't currently a cat. "Everything will probably be fine. But y'know. In case it's not. I just wanted to let you know there was a back door."

"These gigais aren't going to slowly turn us human, are they?" Rukia asked suspiciously.

"Not unless that's what you want."

"Why would I want that?" Rukia exploded.

"I dunno. Sometimes people fall in love with humans, get dumb ideas, how should I know? Being immortal in the Living World gets to you. I spent ten years as a cat once."

"How do we get in contact with you?" Renji asked.

"We'll let you know once you're in place. Maybe. Most likely, _I'll _find _you_." Yoruichi flashed them a sunny smile. "Buck up, kids. I'm sorry to come in here and be a downer. Odds are everything will go great. Who wouldn't want an all-expenses-paid vacation to an off-season beach town to chase down a bunch of smoke and shadows that's already eaten half a dozen Onmitsukidou operatives?"

"No one has told us what we're looking for yet," Rukia pointed out slowly.

"Let's get ol' Soi Fon in here, then." A devilish look crept onto Yoruichi's face. "Hey, this'll be funny, get ready for it." Yoruichi slammed the door open and stuck her head out in the hallway. "Soi Fon! SOI FON! Abarai and Kuchiki have escaped!"

"Oh, no," Rukia moaned.

Soi Fon came skidding into the room, in shikai, shedding papers everywhere. "What the hell, how did-"

Renji and Rukia made sympathetic faces at her, holding their hands up helplessly.

"Dammit, Yor- your Ladyship," Soi Fon managed through gritted teeth.

"This is like, the fifth time you've fallen for that one."

"_Get out_," Soi Fon snarled, shoving Yoruichi out of the interrogation room.

Yoruichi returned a moment later, holding a small pile of papers. "You dropped these."

"_OUT!" _Soi Fon snatched the papers and slammed the door. She cleared her throat and tried to compose herself. "So. The mission."

"Could you, uh, put your shikai away? Ma'am?" Renji asked hopefully.

"Oh. Right. Yes."

Rukia and Renji waited patiently for the captain of Squad 2 to compose herself. "You've probably been wondering," Soi Fon began, "what business the Patrol Corps has in the World of the Living, anyway."

"It had crossed our minds," Rukia replied dryly.

"We think," Soi Fon went on, "that someone powerful in Soul Society is playing silly buggers in the World of the Living." She folded her hands. "The cutesy little tourist town of Kurage Bay is relatively recent. That's because the area was pretty solid yokai territory before the Demon Realms Withdrawal of 1902. The yokai are gone, as per the treaty, but there's a lot of residue, and there are probably some people running around with a few threads of demonblood in their veins. Furthermore, where you get yokai, you get human magic, and there's a lot of that still kicking around. Now, as I'm sure you remember from your school days, Hollows like yokai about as much as we do, and so there's been very little need for shinigami in the area.

"Then, late last summer, the 12th picked up the signature of a massive Hollow, which persisted for under an hour and then disappeared. As you may recall, there was a lot going on in Soul Society last summer, so they didn't notice it in the logs until around September, at which point it had happened three times, a month apart. Each time, a single human was found dead in the same vicinity. Again, the fall was also kind of busy, so we didn't put together the most organized response. The Seventh sent out an unseated patrol officer, who was killed in action. October, a pair of unseated officers. Also killed in action. At this point, there were indications that this was related to a domestic matter under investigation by the Patrol Corps. In November, Omaeda send out an observation team, including three Squad 2 combat officers. They were able to locate and engage the Hollow. They killed it, at which point, their last communication indicates that they were attacked by a _second _monster. We're not sure if it's a Hollow or not. It was described as being largely incorporeal, resembling dark smoke. There wasn't much after that, because it killed all three of them very quickly. It appears that they were unable to damage it with either zanpakutou or kidou."

Soi Fon looked between them. Rukia was sticking out her lower lip. Renji was clenching and relaxing one fist thoughtfully.

"We're sending the two of you out there primarily to replace the combat officers. We're not sure whether the previous signatures belonged to a single Hollow-the one that was killed-or a series of them. The Hollow sightings were very predictable: evening high tide on the full moon. We'll know for sure in late December if there will be more. If it does show, kill it, preferably before it eats any humans. As for the smoke being, it is more difficult for the 12th to track, but it is generally active for the few days before and after the full moon. If you can kill that, too, good."

"You said this had something to do with someone in Soul Society…?" Rukia pressed.

"You let us worry about that part. The two of you are there for muscle, and…" she sighed. "The field team needs help getting some intel. It's difficult to get information from humans. They are hard to interact with. You weirdos seem to have some skill at it."

"What sort of information?" Renji asked.

"They'll let you know," Soi Fon waved a hand dismissively. She stared at them. "That's it. That's the whole thing. You can leave now."

"That's not a whole lot to go on," Rukia admitted.

"This isn't one of your neat little 13th Squad field missions," Soi Fon snapped. "Onmitsukidou know exactly as much about their missions as they need to. Kill any Hollows you see. Kill or trap any aggressive monsters you find, smokey or otherwise. Protect humans. Do anything else the field team commander asks you to. Otherwise, blend in, hang out, and mind your own business. You think you two can handle this? I can still throw you in the Maggot's Nest if you'd prefer."

"Yes, ma'am," Renji said immediately, but he was looking at Rukia out of the corner of his eye.

Rukia wanted to ask more questions, but they weren't the kind Soi Fon would answer. They would just have to do some investigating on their own. She nodded curtly. "You can count on us, ma'am."

* * *

Rukia sat up when she spotted the sign for Kurage Bay. Rather than open a senkaimon directly there, they were obscuring their path by taking the train from Kyoto, their alleged hometown. It was a pleasant journey, a little under two hours, and Rukia, who had only been to urban parts of the Living World, enjoyed watching the passing landscape get progressively greener. Renji- _Takeru_\- she singsonged to herself, had very generously offered her the window seat, and then promptly fallen asleep. He's traveled so much, this is probably a bore for him, she decided. It certainly wasn't that Takeru got an inconvenient case of insomnia every time he had some big challenge to face in the morning. That was someone else. She patted him firmly on the knee.

"Takeru! Sweetie! We're the next stop!"

He made a grumbling noise, and stretched as best as he was able within the confines of his seat.

"How are your legs?" she asked.

"Cramped t'hell," he managed, grimacing.

"Well, shake it off, we're almost there."

He rubbed his calves roughly as the train pulled into the station. "How far did you say we have to walk?"

"We have to take a bus first, then it's about half a mile." She leered at him. "Maybe if you don't complain too much, I'll give you a massage when we get home."

"I'm gonna hold you to that," he replied, standing up with another wince, and passed her down her backpack from the overhead.

There weren't a whole lot of people getting off at this station, and most of the others appeared to be people returning home, or being welcomed by family. They located the bus stop readily enough, and Rukia scrutinized the schedule. "Oh, good, there'll be one along in about fifteen minutes."

"Is that good?" Renji asked, plopping down on the bench and going to work on his calves again.

"It only runs every hour and a half on the weekends," she explained.

"Real bustling metropolis here," he commented.

"It will be quiet. It will be _peaceful_," she said, as though this conversation had been run through many times before.

As they nattered away, they were each letting their spiritual senses roam out over the nearby area. This place was a bit untidy, with several restless Pluses within the immediate vicinity, but nothing majorly out of sorts.

The bus arrived, and they piled on. There was a tired father with a small boy, and an older couple. Both groups departed within the next few stops, and the bus trundled out towards the town limits. Finally, they reached their stop, which appeared to be a cluster of a half dozen small houses near the shore.

"Look, Takeru," Rukia breathed. "We're so close to the sea."

"Yeah, but we still aren't actually close to _our house_," he reminded her. "That way?"

They headed down a small, unpaved road that lead through a wooded area. Renji took big steps, trying to stretch his legs out. Rukia danced alongside him, walking backwards and forwards and talking his ear off. Finally, a small house in some disrepair appeared, nestled among some stunted trees. The shore wasn't too far away, they could hear the nearby murmurings of the water, and the air was thick with salt. A moving truck was parked out front.

"The movers are here!" Rukia trilled.

Renji scowled. "Does this mean I don't get my massage?"

"Maybe later," she winked.

"Hallooooo! Homeowners here!" Renji shouted against the front door.

The door swung open, and Mori's smiling face appeared. She was dressed in moving company coveralls. "C'mon in."

"Could we _be _any further out in the sticks?" Rukia exploded once they were in the door.

Renji chuckled. He had rather enjoyed the long journey out here. Maybe they had made a mistake when they had decided Takeru would be the grumpy one. It probably wasn't too late to switch.

There were a few pieces of furniture set up, and boxes everywhere. Besides Mori, there were three other Onmitsukidou dressed as movers. One, a tall man with dark, slicked back hair, walked toward them. "We've warded this place to the gills. A single atom of reiatsu shouldn't be able to get out of here. We couldn't have pulled that off in the city." His eyes scanned each of them. "I'm Ozui, the leader of the field team," he introduced. "You already know Mori, of course. This is my second, Wada." Wada was a large man who seemed like he might have been specifically chosen for moving boxes. "And this is Sakai. She's our Kuchiki decoy."

This had been in the briefing. Sakai was petite, and had short, dark hair. She would nominally be the shinigami assigned to the area, although she was being heavily watched over by members of Ozui's team. "You remember the rules for leaving your gigais?"

"Try to fight in the gigais, first," Rukia recited. "If one of us has to get out, I'm preferred."

"If I get out, it better be endgame," Renji chipped in.

If they had to engage the enemy in spirit form, it was hoped that Rukia would be mistaken for Sakai. If the enemy realized there were extra shinigami around, and powerful ones at that, the jig would be up. Renji's appearance was just too distinctive to try to use a body double.

Ozui nodded. "Good. Like I said, you're sealed here in the house, so you can get out if you need to. Try to stay in them as much as possible, if you can, though." He waved around. "Anyway, upstairs is your living area. We're gonna let you unpack up here yourself, do whatever you want with the place. He pulled aside a tatami and cast a quick kidou. A trapdoor shimmered into view, and he pulled it open. "All the good stuff is down here."

They followed him down the ladder, into a pantry of sorts.

"Storeroom," he explained, pointing at various shelves. "Gigai maintenance. Spare soul removal gloves. Batteries. Soul fixer, if you have trouble synching with your gigais, but don't start depending on the stuff." Further down, there were fewer boxes on the shelves and more books. At the far end of the room was a smaller version of the video link they'd had in Orihime's apartment back in Karakura. There were a pair of spirit phones sitting near it. "You can use these to contact myself or Mori. They will not reach Soul Society. You are not to communicate with Soul Society for the length of this mission, do you understand?"

They nodded.

"We gave you some reference materials," he said, waving at the books, "but feel free to call Mori for any of that junk. She has a research team on call for this."

The long, narrow room opened up into a good-sized dojo.

"Training room," he said. "Even more strongly warded than upstairs. You wanna practice with your zanpakutous, you come down here." He frowned. "And you should. I don't know what staying in those gigais all the time is going to do to your spiritual pressures."

"Not too big down here," Renji observed, looking around the dojo. "Zabimaru's gonna complain my ear off."

"It was hard enough to make it this big," Ozui shrugged. "Better than nothing. Let's go over how to use some of this equipment."

* * *

The Onmitsukidou hung around for a few more hours. Ozui made sure they understood the mission parameters in nauseating detail. They went over all the equipment. They went over budget and protocols and reporting. Mori kept jumping in with "useful facts" about the town that they were definitely not going to remember later. They unloaded more boxes from the truck. "Arright, that's good enough," Ozui suddenly declared. "You're on your own. Check in with me every few days. I will come by on Sunday afternoons for briefings."

"Okay," Rukia and Renji agreed in unison, dazed from information overload.

The Onmitsukidou piled into their moving van and it screeched up the dirt path at what was surely an unsafe speed.

Renji looked at Rukia. Rukia looked at Renji. They looked around at their home for the foreseeable future. There were boxes everywhere. They had no idea what was in any of them.

"Let's go down to the sea," Renji said.

Rukia eyed the boxes. "I start my job tomorrow. We'll need to find my clothes."

He shrugged.

Rukia regarded him, eyes narrowed. Three and a half months previous, she had declared herself friends with Abarai Renji, Vice-Captain of the Illustrious and Rule-Bound Sixth Division. He bore a few token resemblances (primarily the hair) to Abarai Renji, Filthy Urchin and Boon Companion of the 78th District of South Rukongai. One of their main differences was that Abarai Renji, Filthy Urchin had appreciated and made time for many of the finer things in life, such as warm patches of sunlight, cool rivers you could stick your feet in, and napping. Vice-Captain Renji liked these things also, but only when time allowed, such as when your all paperwork was completed and filed, which was, of course, never.

"Let's go down to the sea," said Rukia.

* * *

Two hours later, the sun was going down, and they stumbled back in, wet and filthy, teeth chattering.

"Maybe we should have figured out where the towels were before we left," Renji said regretfully.

"Anything can be a towel if you use your imagination," Rukia replied, digging into the nearest box. She pulled out a frying pan. "Maybe not this."

"What are these?" Renji asked, pulling something voluminous and hideously patterned out of another box. "Curtains?"

"Looks like towels to me!"

He tossed one to her, and started using another to rub at his dripping hair. They hadn't meant to go in at all, it was December for crying out loud, but Rukia said she wasn't getting that close to the water without putting her toes in, and that had ended up with them both in up to their waists, splashing each other, because these things always happened when you spent too much time with Kuchiki Rukia.

"I think I found some of your clothes," Rukia announced. She had wrapped the curtain around herself, like a very gaudy version of the capes they'd worn in Hueco Mundo. "Go shower and get into something dry. Maybe I'll have found my box by the time you're done."

Renji dug through the box and managed to find all the parts of an outfit. "I'll be quick," he promised.

The shower started out very cold and had only made its way to lukewarm when there was a thump as something was thrown into the bathroom.

"Found the towels!" Rukia shouted.

"Did you find any soap or shampoo?"

"Not yet! Still looking!"

He decided that "clean enough" took precedence over hypothermia, and finished up. He padded out of the bathroom in a pair of sweatpants and hoodie over a t-shirt for an American band he didn't recognize, the towel draped over his head. "You're up," he called. "The water got a little warmer near the end. Hope it's better for you."

"Not a problem!" she sang. "Hey, you hungry?"

"Yeah," he admitted. "Do we have any food in this place?"

"Mori said they left us some take-out in the fridge. See if you can find some plates and chopsticks, will you?"

"I'll look," he replied skeptically. He ripped the tape off a box. Power tools? Hmm. Power tools.

He found the bedding, which would be handy, and a pile of jigsaw puzzles, which would not, and the box of Rukia's clothes. Finally he gave up and started heating dinner in the microwave. Chad had taught him how to use a microwave. This was why they had chosen him to go on this mission to the Living World, he reminded himself. As he dug around in the mostly empty kitchen cabinets, hoping to find some sort of tea, it occurred to him that if he had just found Rukia's clothes, what was she planning on wearing? He walked out of the kitchen, intending to ask her if she needed anything, but she was already coming out of the bathroom.

He crossed his arms and raised one eyebrow. "Rukia."

"It's Tomoe."

"Tomoe."

"Yes, Takeru?"

"Seriously."

She cocked her head to one side adorably. "We're married, it's very cute when a wife borrows her husband's clothes."

Renji raised the other eyebrow.

To be fair, they weren't exactly his clothes anyway, it's not like he had ever worn them before. Rukia was positively swimming in a long-sleeved t-shirt with JGSDF stenciled on it. She was also wearing a pair of boxer shorts that hung down well past her knees. She appeared to be holding them up with one hand. It was hard to tell for sure, because approximately 8 inches of sleeve hung past the end of her hand. An enormous pair of socks sagged around her ankles.

"I found your clothes, they're in the box on the couch," he said, jerking a thumb in the general direction.

"I'm very comfortable."

"You're going to make a mess if you try to eat dinner in that."

"Tell me I'm adorable."

"You look like a wizard cast a spell on you and shrunk you."

Rukia waddled over to the table and plopped down. "Guess I'm getting sauce all over your shirt, then."

He retrieved two tubs of noodles from the microwave and plopped them on the table. "I couldn't find the utensils anyway."

"We dine like royalty, then!" she announced, trying to pour some noodles into her mouth. They came out in a big glob and hit her in the face.

Renji fished a noodle out of his own tub with his fingers and ate it. It wasn't bad. "I'll unpack more tomorrow while you're at work. I guess I should get some food for us, too."

"You will need to go to a 'grocery store'," Rukia informed him knowledgeably. There were noodles hanging out of both sides of her mouth.

"I know that. I went to a grocery store with Chad."

She frowned. "You went to the grocery store with Chad?"

Renji shrugged. "We hung out some. When we weren't training."

"At the grocery store?"

"He needed some stuff! It was on the way!"

"I think Ozui just expects us to get take-out all the time."

Renji frowned. "That's impractical."

"I can pick it up on the way home."

"What about weekends?"

"What do you want to do instead? Cook?"

"Yeah."

Rukia regarded him skeptically. "Do you know how to cook? Because I do not know how to cook."

"I can learn," Renji huffed. "I think they sell books that teach you how to do it. Anyway, whether I cook or not, we should have some things like tea and furikake and juice."

"And beer. Get some beer," Rukia suggested. "Oh, you should make a list! Write down the things you want to buy, so you don't forget anything." She looked very pleased with herself. "That's what Yuzu does."

"Smart," Renji agreed. He glanced around the sea of boxes. "I wonder if we own any paper."

Rukia put her head down on the table. "We are never going to get all these unpacked. I am exhausted."

"I'll work on it tomorrow," he promised. "I found the futons. We can just go to sleep if you want." He chewed his noodles thoughtfully. "What's the bedroom situation?"

Rukia rolled her head so she could look at him with one eye. How had he not scoped out the bedroom situation? That was the very first thing she had checked after walking into the house. "There's a big room with a divider," she explained. "So it can be one or two."

"Perfect," he replied.

Rukia watched him blithely eat noodles through the curtain of her hair. What did that mean, 'perfect'? Was one perfect, or was two? Finally, she gave in. "How is that perfect?"

"Well, married people are supposed to share a bedroom, right?" he pointed out.

"Yeahhhh," she slowly agreed.

"So we can use the divider and have our own rooms, but if have guests or something, we can open it up and make it look like we share, right?"

"I don't think we're going to have any guests," she frowned.

"We might. Why would they go to all the trouble of setting us up with normal looking living quarters if we're never supposed to have anyone over? Otherwise, it could just be a mess of shinigami crap up here." He tilted his head to the side. "Is that okay? I mean, I guess a shoji's not much. I can sleep in the living room if you need more space."

Rukia's cheeks burned. Was she expecting him to suggest that they share a room? What was she thinking? "Don't be dumb, it's fine. Swimming just made me really tired," she grouched.

Renji pushed his dinner aside, wiped his hands, and got up. "I'll put your futon out for you. Go find some pajamas in your box, and wipe your face, you've got sauce on your nose."

She was still sitting there when he got back.

He sighed, wiped her nose with a napkin, and then threw her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

"Renji!" she protested.

"You asked for it," he singsonged.

"No, thank you for the ride! I just need you to watch my shorts, they don't stay on very well."

"I've seen your ass before, it hasn't killed me yet."

They somehow made it to the bedroom without major mishap, and he hefted her into bed, and unceremoniously pulled a blanket up under her chin. He stuck his face next to hers. "GOODNIGHT, WIFE."

"I need to catch the 6:45 bus tomorrow," she mumbled.

He patted her gently on the head. "I'll make sure you're up," he promised, and left, sliding the shoji closed behind him.

Rukia sighed in the darkness. She would have preferred he left it open. She didn't have too long to worry, though, because she was asleep within minutes.

~ end part 3


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"You didn't need to ride the bus with me," Rukia hissed.

"I'm going to the grocery store," Renji excused.

"You're way too excited about going to the grocery store," she informed him. "Also, no one goes to the grocery store at 7am."

"It shouldn't be crowded then," he declared loftily.

There were a handful of other people on the bus with them, mostly middle-aged men who looked dressed for work, possibly also at the fishery. They had sized up Rukia and Renji suspiciously at the bus stop, but hadn't been particularly friendly or bothered to introduce themselves.

The fishery was actually the first stop in town. "Stay on for two more stops," Rukia said, pointing her finger at him.

"I know," he replied. "Good luck on your _first day_." He made a kissy face.

"I'm wearing lipstick," she scolded.

He grabbed her chin and kissed her on the cheek. She sighed, a young woman just trying to be professional with this sappy husband, what can you do? and made her way off the bus.

The fishery complex was quite large. Most of her neighbors veered off in one direction together. Rukia headed for the administration building. There didn't seem to be a lot of traffic into that building. The head office was near the front door. There was shouting coming out of it. Cautiously, Rukia poked her head in. A young, well-dressed woman was dressing down a middle aged man whose entire body screamed 'paper pusher.' He clutched a manila folder like a life preserver. Rukia was a dead girl from another plane of existence, and even she could tell he was an accountant.

"Get it right next time!" the woman screamed, shooing him out of the office. He scurried. The woman's eyes caught Rukia. "Are you Satonaka?"

"Yes, ma'am," Rukia replied, giving a formal bow.

The woman's visage relaxed visibly. "Oh, thank goodness. I'm Sunadori Yui. My father owns this fishery, but I run it. You will work for me. I've been without help for two months, I'm so glad we've finally managed to hire someone." She frowned. "You any good, Satonaka? Or are you a waste, like the last three assistants I've had?"

"I am here to do my best, ma'am!" Rukia barked. It was mostly instinct. Sunadori had the demeanor of a vice-captain.

Sunadori regarded her skeptically. "That's a little formal, Satonaka." She thought again. "On second thought, I like it. Keep it up. I'm going to call the IT guy to get your computer set up." She yelled into her cell phone briefly, then smiled winningly at Rukia again. "Welcome to the company Satonaka. I'm sure you'll love it here."

* * *

Renji was officially overwhelmed.

He wished Rukia had come with him. To be fair, she probably wouldn't know what she was doing, either.

He wished Chad were here. Ishida would probably be even better. He would even take Orihime or, so help him, Ichigo in a pinch.

But no.

It was just him and the grocery store.

Well, him, the grocery store, and the old people who went shopping at 7 in the morning.

This grocery store was quite a bit bigger than the little bodega where Chad did his shopping, but more importantly, Chad knew what he needed and where to find it.

Renji had spent his earliest years trying to find or steal any kind of food he could. He usually ate it in whatever state he found it. If needed, he would set it on fire, and then eat it.

The very best thing about the Gotei 13, Renji would tell you, was the mess. You showed up, and there was food, and they gave you the food. A lot of shinigami didn't like the food at the mess. Renji had gotten in fistfights with people who bad-mouthed the mess.

Rukia was counting on him to make her dinner. He was the mess, now.

He had hoped there would be books here on how to prepare the food, but he didn't see any. They did have some shiny magazines near the front, advertising articles like "5 Easy Weeknight Dinners!" Renji had put one in his basket. He planned to read it cover-to-cover.

"You just have to do this," he told himself. "Just buy some stuff. You can come back tomorrow if you need to." He couldn't buy too much anyway, because he had to get everything home on the bus.

They should have rice, obviously, so he started there.

There were so many kinds of rice. One of them had a bunny on the bag, so he picked that one, in hopes that Rukia would like it.

Rukia had asked for beer, and also, if she was drunk, maybe she would overlook his bad cooking. They had the same kind that he knew Ichigo's father drank. He got a different one.

They would need some tea. There were also a thousand brands of tea. One of them had almost identical packaging to the kind from Rukongai that he liked, so he picked that one. This was getting easier. He could do this.

He found the seasoning aisle. This was important. They would need something to put on the rice. He grabbed soy sauce, hot sauce (for Rukia), mirin… and realized he was being watched. A tiny, elderly woman with a long white braid watched him critically. Oh, no. He had failed at the grocery store. He had been _caught. " _Young man?" she asked firmly.

"Good morning, ma'am," he bowed. "Am I doing something wrong?"

She looked a little confused. "No, kiddo, you're just very tall." She gestured toward a top shelf. "Could you fetch down that packet of kombu for me?"

"Oh! Sure." He grabbed the package of seaweed she was pointing at. He glanced at it before handing it to her. "What's that for?"

"Hmm? Kombu?"

"Yeah," he asked. "Do I need to buy some?"

She frowned. "Well, I don't know. I'm pickling some daikon today. It's also useful in soups."

Soups. He was probably going to have to learn to make soups. He grabbed a second packet, and put it in his own basket. "Thank you."

She regarded him as though he might be a little crazy. She was not wrong. "Good luck, sport."

The mention of daikon reminded him that vegetables existed, and they were good for you, so he looked for that next. The store had fruit also, which was great, because you could just eat fruit without doing anything to it. Renji bought a lot of fruit.

He decided to skip meat altogether until he was feeling a little more confident, but he remembered you could get little cans of fish that you could just _eat _and decided to try to find those. Chad ate a lot of those. He was peering down aisles, when he spotted his old lady friend again. She waved him over, and pointed up again. "The tub of miso paste," she said. He got it down for her. "You make miso soup with this?" he asked. Miso soup seemed like it should be easy.

"Mm-hmm," she replied. "Although, you can buy it in packets that you just add hot water to."

"Oh, really? Why would anyone make it the hard way, then?"

She shrugged. "It generally tastes better when you make it yourself."

"Maybe when you make it _your_self," Renji appraised. "Probably not when I make it _my_self. Do you know where it is? Also canned fish."

"Two aisles down for the soup, and another one after that for the fish."

"Thank you!"

Eventually, Renji decided that he had enough to keep starvation at bay for a few days at least, plus he needed to finish up in time to catch the bus home. The cookie aisle had been next to the canned fish, so if all else failed, maybe he could distract Rukia with cookies. He was a little worried that the cashier was going to look askance at his grocery purchases, but the bored young man ringing him up looked like he was having trouble even staying awake. With a relieved sigh, Renji hauled his bounty back outside to the bus stop.

His grocery friend was waiting for him. "We meet again," she cackled.

"Thank you for all your help, ma'am," he replied, bowing politely.

She appraised him carefully. "You're a strange young man." She didn't know the half of it. "You waiting for the number 6?"

"Yup," he replied. "I'm all the way down at the end of the line."

Her eyes narrowed. "You just moved into Nojiri Hyousuke's old place?"

Renji's eyes widened. "Oh. Yeah, I think. The place belonged to an uncle of my wife's. He passed away a few years ago, and the house has been empty, I guess? I don't remember his name, but that sounds about right."

She nodded slowly. "Seems we're neighbors. I suppose we might exchange names, then.

That was a strange way of putting it. "Sure. Satonaka Takeru."

"Always be careful with your name, sport. You don't seem like you could do much harm with mine, though, so I'll tell you: Kuwashima Taiki."

The bus arrived and they climbed on. It was otherwise empty.

"You said you're married?"

"Just a few months now. Tomoe started a new job at the fishery today."

She nodded knowingly as some puzzle pieces fell into place. "And you're keeping house for her?"

"Yes," he agreed.

Mrs. Kuwashima nodded approvingly. "That's very modern of you."

Renji nodded back. "Thank you!"

"You have no idea what you're doing, do you?"

He shook his head enthusiastically. "Not a clue."

"Well, good luck, then."

They exchanged some idle chatter as the bus bumped past the town limits. Mrs. Kuwashima had lived in Kurage Bay a long time. She might be a good resource. Also, she was a little strange, but Renji liked her.

"Do you need help carrying your groceries home?" he asked when they had arrived at their stop.

"You seem loaded down enough," she observed wryly. "And I've gotten pretty good at figuring out how much I can carry."

Renji managed a polite bow, even managing to not drop anything out of his bags. "It was nice to meet you, ma'am. I'm glad we're neighbors."

She regarded him for a moment. "If you need anything," she said. "I'm at Block 12, Number 3. Come around back."

"I think you know where I am," he returned.

"Thank you for the invitation, kiddo," she replied. "But you won't catch me down there. That patch of woods you live in is haunted as hell. Chock full of ghosts."

Renji smiled blandly. "Well. I'll let you know if I run into any."

* * *

Despite being unseated, Rukia had definitely done her share of the Squad 13 paperwork, and apparently, running the Wazao Fish Farm wasn't all that different than running a squad of militaristic psychopomps. Except that Wazao had computers.

Rukia typed a number into a box, and hit enter.

The number at the bottom of the column updated.

Skeptically, Rukia grabbed a piece of paper and added up the numbers herself. _The answer was correct _.

"What. the. Junk?" Rukia murmured.

* * *

It was getting on into the afternoon.

Renji had made some serious progress with the boxes. He was trying to be very intentional about everything, putting things where they belonged, only trying to put out what was useful. Some things he didn't know what they were for or why humans had them. Those things went back in the boxes, neatly labeled. Some of the labels just said "I have no idea." They might need them later. He was also becoming deeply skeptical that the Onmitsukidou understood the human lifestyle very well at all.

"Aha!" he exclaimed when he finally located the rice cooker, the one item he actually really needed. "Hmm." It was a pretty fancy one. It had a lot of buttons. Fortunately, it also had a manual. Renji read the manual. Renji looked at the buttons again. Renji read the manual again. Renji picked up his rice cooker and walked out of the house.

* * *

It wasn't too hard to find Block 12, Number 3. There was only one street, and there were only eight houses on it. There was a large wooden sign in front of #3, which read "Fortunes Told". A fat brown cat lounged on the front step. Renji considered this for a minute. There weren't nearly as many witches and magic users in the World of the Living as there once were, but Soi Fon had said there were some in the area. He also knew that it was not uncommon for humans to pretend to have such powers for monetary purposes, which was the most likely explanation here. Either way, it was probably worth checking out.

He headed around back. There was a tidy little garden, mostly cleaned up for the winter. A rowboat was propped upside down on a wooden rack. He rapped on the door.

"Just a minute!" came a muffled voice, and a minute later, the door swung open.

Mrs. Kuwashima blinked at the tall young man standing on her back step, holding a rice cooker. "Good afternoon, Mrs. Kuwashima!" he greeted with a formal bow. "Do you know how to use this?"

Despite herself, she chuckled. "Good afternoon, Mr. Satonaka. I can probably figure it out. I'm up to my elbows in pickles right now, though."

"Oh. Do you… want some help?"

Her eyes widened, and a delighted smile spread over her face. "It does go faster with someone to hold the jars while I pour. Please come in."

It was a good thing that she turned her back as she went back into the house, because something very strange happened as Renji passed over the threshold. He felt a weird resistance, like someone was holding a soul removal glove gently to his forehead. Renji focused hard on sticking to his gigai and _pushed _back. The resistance gave way suddenly, and he stumbled into a homey little kitchen permeated with a vinegary smell.

A number of clean, empty glass jars were spread out a large work table, surrounding a big tub of golden pickled daikon. A pressure cooker sat open on top of the stove nearby.

There was also a ghost in the kitchen.

At first, Renji thought it was a fixed location ghost- she seemed quite stable, and didn't give off the frantic aura of a plus. Then, he realized that her soul chain was connected, not to the house itself, but to a small gold ring that sat on the kitchen table.

The ghost was a young woman, older than Ichigo, dressed in human fashion from a few decades past. She sat at the kitchen table, her hand resting on one cheek, looking quite bored. Her eyes followed Renji with a spark of interest as he very pointedly ignored her, finding a clear spot on a counter to set down his rice cooker.

"Who's this clown, Mom?" the ghost asked. "I think he can see me."

Renji set about washing his hands. There were some other weird things in the kitchen as well. A potted plant that radiated a kind of spiritual energy he wasn't used to. A teapot that seemed to have a soul. A little snake, brilliant emerald green in color, curled in a sunny patch on top of the sugar canister. He honestly wasn't sure if a human would be able to see any of these things. He was just going to have to fake it. "So, what can I do?"

"These pickles have already been sitting for a few weeks, we're just going to jar them up," Mrs. Kuwashima replied. Was she ignoring the ghost, or maybe she couldn't see it either? She pulled an apron off a nearby hook and handed it to him. "Put this on, the brine sometimes stains."

The apron was ridiculously short on him, but he put it on without complaint. The ghost snorted at him.

"Now, hold."

Renji held jars while she ladled pickles in.

"You're, ah, a fortune teller?" he asked, conversationally.

"It pays the bills," she replied mildly. "I have a shop in town, as well. It gets a fair amount of traffic during the tourist season, but I close it up and just work out of the house over the winter." She regarded him out of the corner of her eye. "You have any of the second sight, yourself, Mr. Satonaka?"

Renji laughed. "What, like seeing ghosts? I don't believe in that stuff." He frowned. "Uh, no disrespect."

She hmmed. "There are lots of things to see in the world. I don't deal with the dead, myself, unless I can help it. Set the lids on those, would you, buddy? Just the flat part." She walked over to futz with the pressure cooker, coolly palming the ring off the table and putting it in her pocket. The ghost promptly disapparated.

"What's your method?" Renji asked. "Palm-reading? Chicken guts?"

"Oh, whatever people want," she replied. "Birth charts bring in a lot of money. I know tarot spreads, palmistry, casting lots, tea leaves. Entrails are a little messy, I charge a lot for that." She looked at him knowingly. "That's just the theater, though. It's really all the same."

"Reading people? Knowing what they want to hear?"

The side of her mouth quirked up. "Mmm. Something like that. Bring those over here, would you?"

He started shuttling jars over.

"You were a soldier, no?"

Renji tried to remember if he had mentioned that. He didn't think he had. "I guess. Isn't it a little impolite to go reading someone's fortune when they haven't given you permission?"

She raised one eyebrow at him slyly. "You've had a major upheaval in your destiny recently," she informed him. "It's very obvious."

"If you wanna know something about me," he frowned, "you could just ask. We're friends, right?"

"Are we, now?" she asked, clearly delighted. "Do you make a habit of befriending old ladies you meet at the grocery store?"

He stopped to fix the lid of a jar that wasn't on straight. "When I was a kid, I didn't make friends with anyone, I was a punk. In the military, you have to make friends with people. Even people you don't like. You might save their life or they might save yours. Stuff in the military made a lot of sense to me. Now, I'm out, all of a sudden, and I guess I don't really know how to be. We don't have to be friends if you don't want to."

"I would never pass up a friendship with someone who comes by to help me can!" she scolded him. Her face turned softer. "Many of my customers come to me in times of uncertainty. They want me to tell them what will come next, but these times in a person's life are very important. They're the times we learn about ourselves and what we really want." She loaded the last of the jars into the pressure cooker and sealed it up.

This was all hitting a little too close to home. He tried to divert the conversation. "If it hadn't happened, if I hadn't got injured that is, I never woulda got back with Tomoe. That's my wife. She's the best thing that ever happened to me. I don't really care what comes next, I just want to be with her and make her happy. Make her rice."

Mrs. Kuwashima laughed. "Well, sport, let's see what we can do about that."

* * *

Rukia didn't know how she was so exhausted. She hadn't done _anything _all day, just sat in a chair and typed things and got yelled at. She had held out a far-fetched hope that Renji might be waiting at the bus stop to walk her home, but no such luck. The hard-faced men who rode the bus with her trudged off to their houses, and she trudged down the hill to hers.

It was starting to get dark, but the porch light was on, like a lighthouse guiding her to port. "I'm home," she called half-heartedly, as she came in.

"Great timing!" Renji called from somewhere in the house. "Dinner's ready!"

Had he...had he really? Rukia stepped up out of the entryway into the house. Renji was standing very proudly next to the dinner table, grinning like a fool. Rukia felt a smile tug at her lips at the sight of him, he looked so stupidly proud of himself.

"What are we having?" she asked tentatively.

"Rice!" he announced.

She blinked at him.

"I mean, there's also stuff to put on the rice." It was true. There were at least 15 different condiments lined up on the table, as well as a haphazard pile of assorted fruit and a stack of various tins of fish. "The rice is the part I made, though." There was a rather urgent whistling coming from the kitchen. "Oh, I'm making tea, too, hold on!" He ran off.

Rukia surveyed the table, furrowing her brow. She had no idea how to react to this. There was an unlabeled glass jar of beautiful, golden takuan as well, looking very out of place. She wondered where he had gotten that.

Renji bustled back in, holding a teapot in one hand, two cups dangling from the other. "Sit down!" he scolded.

Rukia sat.

He spooned an enormous heap of rice into a bowl, handed it to her, and then made one for himself. He put his hands together and stared at her expectantly until she did the same. "Itadakimasu!"

She tentatively took a bite of rice while he poured her a cup of tea.

"How is it?" he asked eagerly.

"It tastes like rice, Renji."

He grinned triumphantly. "I nailed it."

"Doesn't the machine do most of the work?" she asked skeptically, spooning some of the pickles into her bowl.

"Well, yeah, but you gotta figure out how to use the machine. It's not trivial. How was your day?"

Rukia took a long sip of tea. It tasted terrible, of course, but there was something nostalgic about Renji's awful, too-strong tea. "Not great," she admitted. "My boss is mean. At least half of what I did, she said was trash and made me do it over."

"Only half?" Renji asked. "That's great. It was four _days _before I produced a piece of work your brother didn't make me do over, and I had been doing most of Squad 11's paperwork for _years _at that point."

Rukia sighed, and tried the pickle. "And it was just computer work all day. I didn't learn anything interesting. I didn't even get to leave the office. We're never going to find this smoke monster."

"It's gonna take time," he reassured her, as he sorted through the canned fish. "I'm gonna go to the library tomorrow and use the microfiche."

"How is that going to help?"

"Omaeda made us watch all those Living World movies where people used the microfiche to solve crimes. I assumed that's how it was done."

"I think those were just to get used to Living World culture. Even Ishida doesn't use the microfiche."

"Well, I'm gonna."

Rukia sighed. They were going to be stuck here forever. "At least this takuan is really good," she commented.

"Oh, I got that from our neighbor," Renji explained. He chewed his rice thoughtfully. "Mrs. Kuwashima. She's a witch."

Rukia almost spit out her tea. "She's a _what _now?"

"Witch. Fortune-teller specifically, but there was a lot of witchy stuff at her place. She said she doesn't mess with the dead, but she has a semi-stable ghost living in her house."

"Renji!"

"What?"

"What the hell? You could have led with that! And how did you get in her house? And why did she give you pickles?"

Renji ticked off on his fingers. "1) I wanted to hear about your day, first. 2) I met her at the grocery store, because apparently witches and shinigami do their grocery shopping at 7 in the morning. 3) I helped her with some canning, and she gave me a jar." He thought for a moment. "And 4) I think she knows something's not quite right about me, so I'm low-key trying to convince her that I got the Second Sight after seeing Too Much Shit in the War."

Rukia pressed her palms into her eyes. "Rennnnnjjjjiiii."

"Whaaaaat?"

"Why do you get to talk to witches and I have to do spreadsheets all day?"

Renji had finally selected a can of fish, which he was dumping on top of his rice. "I almost forgot. She said the woods around our house were super haunted. She probably just meant the Onmitsukidou, but you wanna run around the woods tonight and look for ghosts?"

Rukia breathed out a huge sigh of relief. "I thought you'd never ask!"

* * *

Rukia felt a little better about things after the first ghost they found refused to talk to Renji. To be precise, the spirit wouldn't stop screaming until he finally retreated back down the hill.

"You just can't trust men," the ghost informed Rukia matter-of-factly. "He'll tell you he's going to marry you, and next thing you know, he's burying your body under a tree."

"We're already married," Rukia pointed out.

"I could choke the life from him, if you want," the ghost offered.

"I'll, uh, take a raincheck," Rukia replied. "Do you ever see other spirits around here? Maybe a dark misty one that looks like smoke? Or angry ones, screaming and wearing bony masks? With a hole in their chest, around here?" she gestured at her sternum.

The ghost was _old_, a hundred years at least. She was tied to her tree, or possibly to her skeleton buried beneath it. Ghosts tied to natural objects tended to be very stable. "I don't usually go far from my tree," she replied, with a tone of voice skeptical of anyone who would _want _to venture too far from their tree. "There are always ghosts that wander down by the shore. I remember that from when I was alive." She hesitated for a moment. "I did see an angry spirit once, the kind you described with the mask, although it didn't scream. It came up from the sea, cold and dripping. I hid in my tree, but I don't think it was interested in me anyway."

"When was this?"

"Oh, I don't know? Maybe a month ago? Maybe a year or two? It was a full moon, I remember it was very bright."

Sometimes old ghosts lost their concept of time. It was understandable.

"Thanks for your help," Rukia said. "Say, aren't you tired of haunting this tree? I could probably find someone to help you pass on, if you'd like."

The ghost contemplated this. "These woods can be very beautiful at night. It's not so bad haunting a tree. It's probably better than being married to Hayao would have been."

"Okay," Rukia shrugged.

"You could come visit me again, though, I would like that!"

"Will do!" Rukia chuckled, waving as she headed back down the hill. Renji was sitting at the bottom, leaning back to watch the stars.

"Get anything useful outta ol' Murder Ballad up there?" he asked.

"She said she saw a Hollow come up from the sea once. On a full moon. Didn't remember much in the way of details. Could be something. Could be nothing."

Renji nodded. "You think we should call in for a konsou?"

"I thought about that," Rukia replied. "But I'm worried if we're up against another shinigami or other intelligent spirit, konsou-ing all the ghosts in our immediate vicinity might look suspicious. She's not unhappy, and maybe she can be an extra set of eyes."

"Seems smart. Where to next?"

"She also said that there are ghosts that wander the coastline, or at least there were in her day."

"Let's go check it out."

They found a second ghost, down by the beach. This one was a gruff-faced man, a lot like the men who rode the bus up to the fishery with Rukia. He was dressed in a modern boatman's rain gear, and his long chain trailed down into the sea.

"OooooooOOOOooooooOO," he warbled.

"Hey, pal, how's it going?" Renji gave a jaunty wave.

"Do not gooooo toooo seeeaaaa," the ghost warned. "My body is looooost—"

"Shipwreck, huh?"

"I'm trying my best to be spooky, here, you're not making this easy."

"It's…fine," Rukia shrugged. "The spooky thing gets old kinda quick."

The ghost hrmmmphed. "Young people. What do you want?"

"You ever see any other spirits around here?" Rukia asked.

"I go all up and down the coast," he informed her. "There are a lot of regulars. Many of them from my own ship. 17 men lost!"

Rukia rubbed her chin. There was a lot of power tied up in mass deaths. "Can you tell us about your shipwreck?"

"We were finishing the catch, about to head in for the day. A storm was rolling in out of the north, and the captain thought we could get the haul and still beat it to shore. We should have, there should have been time, but a cold, dark fog rolled out of the storm. It was a cursed fog, freezing our hands, slowing us down. And then the storm was on us, and we were lost! Fifteen of me crew mates I'm met, wandering this beach, and I myself make sixteen. But I've never run into me captain on these lonely shores! OoooooooOOooooo—"

"Well," said Renji. "That sounds like something."

~ end part 4


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

* * *

"Did I tell you about the box of pictures?" Renji asked the next morning over breakfast.

"No," Rukia replied.

"I guess it was some poor unranked Division 2 slob's job to doctor up a bunch of family photos of us," Renji explained. "They're all extremely bad, and they aren't terribly consistent with our cover story. You should take one of 'em to work."

"Good gravy, _why_?"

"So people know you got a hot husband and they shouldn't hit on you."

"I wear a ring."

"But they won't know I'm _hot_."

"You're _not_."

"Ouch. Uncalled for. Also, you should take some pictures of me with your phone. Normal married people have pictures of each other on their phones."

"First of all, I may have agreed to pretend to be married people with you, but I would _never _pretend to be _normal _married people with you. And anyway, I have a picture of you on my phone. I took it when you were asleep on the train." She pulled out her phone, and he expected her to show it to him, but instead, she took another picture. "There. And now I have a picture of you slurping miso soup."

He scowled at her. "It is _on_. You should not start things you aren't able to finish."

She shrugged nonchalantly. "You think you can defeat me in a stupid picture-taking contest, Abarai? You are about three thousand years too early for that."

"To be fair, I think we've already both been trounced by the Squad 2 fake photography department. You should really look at them, they're kind of amazing. I scattered them around the living room."

Rukia finished her soup and wandered out into the main living area. The man didn't know how to artistically scatter _anything _, they were just sort of lined up on various surfaces. And they were terrible. Many of them were vacation shots, same pose, same stilted facial expression, in front of various B-list world landmarks. "Is this Prague?" Rukia shouted.

"We sure get around, right?"

"Oh. Oh, no."

Renji dashed into the living room. "Did you find the wedding photo?!"

"No. The family ones. Why would they do this?" Rukia held up two photos side-by-side and kept looking back and forth between them.

"I assumed whoever did this was very bored and also does not value their life."

"Well, _obviously that_, but why would they make Omaeda _my _dad, and Soi Fon _your _mom? That doesn't even make sense."

Rukia very gingerly placed both photos face-down. Renji grabbed his and sat it upright again. "Tomoe, my mother worked very hard as a single ninja, getting up early to pack my lunch before going off to assassinate people. Have some respect."

"_What _is _this_?" Rukia grabbed the next photo down the line.

"Yeah, that's the one." They both stared at it for a long time. Rukia tilted her head sideways. Renji also tilted his head sideways. They tilted back.

"Did _Aizen _design my wedding dress?"

"That's it! I knew it reminded me of something! It's the sleeves, right?"

"Well, I obviously needed something to balance the volume of my hair, because _wow_."

"We did get married, like, three months ago, not thirty years ago, right?"

"That was my understanding, yes. Nice, uh, purple bow tie."

"It matches your bouquet, I think?"

"No, I bet it matches some hideous bridesmaids' dresses. Did they make us an entire wedding party photo? I want to know who was in our tacky, western-style wedding!"

"Not that I've found, sorry."

Rukia thought for a moment. "Orihime, maid of honor. Kiyone, Rangiku." She tapped her chin. "Hinamori, also, for you. How about you? Which of your 900 friends was your best man?"

"Ichigo," Renji answered immediately.

Rukia's brow furrowed. "Really? Look, I am not doubting your friendship or anything, but there are so many people you've known for longer-"

"If it weren't for Ichigo," Renji said very sternly. "I think we would still be giving each other the silent treatment to this day." He frowned. "Or we would be dead. Deader."

She looked at him for a long time, eyes wide. He looked back, his own eyes narrowed.

"It got too real, didn't it?"

She nodded quickly. "Yeah."

He thrust a picture into her hands. "Here. Take this one." It was a picture of him in his military uniform. It was one of the better pictures, but Rukia had finally put her finger on what was wrong with all of them- she had gotten used to seeing Renji's facial expressions behind his gigai's features. The formal smile in the photograph had nothing of Renji in it.

"Nice crew cut," she laughed, trying to lighten the mood again.

He joined in. "Yeah, if you look at the pictures, you can figure out what order they go in as you can see me growing it out. Someone was _very _bored. Now go catch your bus! Those spreadsheets aren't going to spread themselves!"

"Please, never, ever say that again."

* * *

Rukia frowned at her spreadsheet.

"Ms. Sunadori?"

"Mmm?"

Sunadori had started the day fired up on coffee and rage, but sometime after lunch, she sort of lost her momentum. She had tooled around her phone for a bit, and was now staring out the window. Rukia thought this might be as good a time as any to approach her with questions.

"Why are all these columns zero-ed out? Did we stop using these boats?"

Sunadori walked up and peered over her shoulder. "Oh, yes. We used to do wild catch as well as aquaculture. We stopped six years ago. We've sold off quite a few of those vessels, I can send you a list, and you can hide the columns."

Rukia frowned. "Why stop so suddenly? Why not taper off as you sold the boats?"

Sunadori huffed. "We had already been tapering off. My father wanted to go fully to aquaculture, but his old business partner, Mr. Oga, had been fishing his whole life, and wanted to keep at it." Her frown turned into a scowl. "There was an accident, and we lost our largest fishing vessel with all hands. Daddy drew the line after that. I'm surprised you haven't heard about it. It was all over the news."

"We, uh, don't get a lot of Kurage Bay news out in Kyoto," Rukia excused.

Sunadori narrowed her eyes, as though this were somehow Rukia's fault.

"What did Mr. Oga think about that?"

Sunadori shrugged. "Who cares? The old bastard went down with the ship."

A clue! Rukia's brain exclaimed. I did it! I found a clue!

"Anyway, it's an old boring story, and I'm tired of talking about it." Judging by the vehemence in her voice, Rukia wasn't sure 'boring' was the right word. But as Renji said, you couldn't push people too hard, you had to slow-play these things. Sunadori gave off the rattling sigh of the long-suffering. "You haven't gotten any emails from anyone in Analytics with the November roll-ups, have you?"

"I haven't gotten any emails from anyone except you," Rukia admitted. "I'm not sure anyone knows I exist."

"Good point," Sunadori frowned. "Anyway, they should have had it in last week. I guess I should go down there and bully them."

Rukia raised her eyebrows hopefully. "If you don't want to, ma'am, I am great at bullying people." Rukia really just wanted to get out of the office. She was desperate for it.

Sunadori raised one eyebrow back. "You? I doubt it." She made a thoughtful frown. "Why don't you come with me, though. It would be good for them to know who you are, and also, you can watch me work. Learn a thing or two."

"Sounds great, ma'am!"

* * *

There was rice again, at dinner.

There was also a bowl of something that sat ominously in the center of the table. Was it vegetables? Did it used to be vegetables? Did it have a sauce or just a...residue? Renji did not mention it. Rukia wasn't positive, but it also appeared that he was refusing to look at it.

"What is that?" Rukia finally asked.

"That," said Renji, "was neither fast, nor easy."

"Is it supposed to be smoky?" Rukia asked.

"Nope," he replied.

Rukia picked a can of fish out of the ubiquitous stack. "I'm gonna heat this up. You wanna split it?"

"I didn't even think of heating those up."

Rukia gave him a Look, as she got up from the table.

"How was the microfiche?"

"Impossible to use. I asked the librarian how to use it, and he asked me if I was trying to solve a murder."

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him it was for my podcast."

"Renji, NO."

"Too late!"

Rukia dumped the fish into a bowl. "You are not starting a podcast."

"Of course not, no. I'm just going to talk about my podcast. Do people ever actually get around to making podcasts?"

"Yes, I think they actually do."

"Gosh. That sounds like so much work. Anyway, it turns out the newspaper has their archives online now, I didn't need to use the microfiche anyway."

Rukia started the microwave. "Since when do you know how to use the internet?"

"Ohhh…" he said, rubbing his neck.

"Ohhhh, what?"

"Well, you remember when Urahara had me doing odd jobs?"

"Shut it. I do not want to hear the rest of this story."

"I guess Tessai has a pretty thriving eBay side hustle going."

"What, like diet supplements?"

"Have you met Tessai? Yes, of course, diet supplements. Anyway, I spent a lot of hours listing stuff for him. Also, Chad and I played a fair amount of World of Warcraft."

"World of Warcraft?"

"Yeah, it's a game where-"

"I know what it is!" Rukia pulled the fish out of the microwave, and headed back for the table. "Ichigo also likes it." She spooned some fish into his bowl. "Tell me more about the library."

"Oh, right. So, I think I found some news articles about our shipwreck."

"6 years ago? Wazou Fisheries boat?"

Renji grinned. "Look at you, the job's coming in handy already. 17 men lost in a minor storm that shouldn't have capsized a boat of that size. Boat was utterly destroyed, no bodies found."

"Hmm," Rukia hmmed. "The captain was part owner of the fishery. There were some business disagreements before he died. My boss doesn't seem like she liked him very much. That's about all I got out of her, though. Then we went and harassed some analysts. I slapped a coffee mug right out of a guy's hand."

Renji nodded. "Work seems to be looking up, then?"

"Yeah, I think it went better today," Rukia agreed. "I figured out how to put different colors in my spreadsheets and I got to see at least one other part of the building." She chewed her rice for a moment. The job was just part of the cover, she reminded herself. It wasn't supposed to be fun or interesting, and surely Renji didn't actually care about it anyway, he was just being polite. "Don't get me wrong, it still sucked. You wanna call Ozui after dinner?"

"Kay," he replied.

It turned out, however, that Ozui was not very interested in the shipwreck. "It was too long ago," he explained. "Six years. From what we can tell, these only attacks started last summer."

"What if they were waiting? Biding their time?"

"Ehh," Ozui demurred.

"Aizen started putting his plan in motion last summer," Rukia pointed out. "Soi Fon thought this all might be Aizen-related. He's kind of known for biding his time."

"I'm skeptical of that," Ozui replied. "That it's Aizen-related, I mean. The captain thinks everything is Aizen-related. Sometimes a Hollow is just a Hollow."

Rukia exchanged a frustrated scowl with Renji.

"Look, guys, the shipwreck seems like the obvious angle, but we've been all over it, and haven't had any more leads. If you want to keep at it, be my guest. Is that it?"

Renji sighed. "There's also Mrs. Kuwashima. You know about Mrs. Kuwashima?"

It turned out he did not, and he was much more interested as Renji described his meeting with her.

"We'll definitely look into this," Ozui promised. "Good work."

"Be careful," Renji warned. "I haven't been able to get a good handle on what powers or senses she has. It's possible I've already blown my cover with her, but if I haven't, try to not to blow it for me."

"We'll keep our distance and let you take the lead," Ozui agreed. "Keep us updated, though, okay?"

"Any updates for us?" Rukia asked. "Anything you want us to look into?"

"Nah. You guys seem to be doing fine. If anything, you're working too hard. Just hang out, this thing'll show up, and we'll call you to come fight it. Talk to you on Sunday!" He hung up.

"What the hell?" Rukia exclaimed.

Renji shrugged.

Rukia fumed for a moment. "You wanna go back out in the woods and look for more ghosts?"

"Okie-doke."

* * *

The week wore on with irritatingly little progress.

They found a few more ghosts in the woods, but they were so old, they had degraded into vague, wailing, misty blobs. Not terribly helpful.

On Wednesday, Renji wanted to spar, so they did that instead. It certainly felt good to get out of the gigais for a bit and stretch, but Rukia couldn't help feeling frustrated that they weren't getting anywhere.

"I think you should visit Mrs. Kuwashima again today," she informed Renji on Thursday morning.

"Yeah, I was thinking the same," he agreed. "I can't seem to get past rice."

"I meant for mission-related reasons," Rukia specified.

Renji shrugged. "As you like."

Rukia frowned. "And see if you can get her to give you another jar of takuan."

"You ate that in an unreasonably short amount of time. It was not a small jar."

"It was _good_."

So, at 2 pm, he showed up at the back door of Block 12, Number 3 again.

"Mr. Satonaka! What brings you here today?"

"I would have invited you over for tea, but you said you wouldn't come down. So I thought I would come up and see if you wanted some company."

The side of her mouth quirked up. "You're getting lonely down there, aren't you?"

"A little."

"Come on in, then."

Renji was ready for the barrier this time, and he took a bit of a running start going through the door. He almost got knocked out of his gigai, but he made it through, his soul snapping back into the artificial body like it was attached with rubber bands.

Mrs. Kuwashima watched him do this without comment.

There was a kettle whistling on the stove, and the table was set for tea. There were even cookies.

"Mom. Mom, you saw him do that. What the hell was that?" The ghost was back.

"You were expecting me?" Renji asked with a smile.

"I occasionally check my own fortune," Mrs. Kuwashima explained, pulling the kettle off the stove and filling the teapot. "How's it going?"

"The rice is going very well, thank you. Everything else, not so much." Renji frowned. "I got two books from the library, and a magazine from the grocery store, but I think I might be too dumb."

She listened patiently while she poured him a cup of tea. "No one is too dumb to cook, sport."

"I might be."

The ghost was poking him now. "Don't be too hasty, Mom."

"How are you at stacking firewood?"

Renji raised one eyebrow. "Moving heavy things is actually something of a specialty of mine."

"If you move some firewood for me, I'll teach you to simmer vegetables in dashi. It's very easy."

"Deal!" Renji agreed easily.

"You know," she said slowly. "I'm just an old woman living alone. I have quite a few jobs I could use a pair of strong arms to help with."

"Mom, noooooo," the ghost wailed.

"If you wanted to come around a few times a week, I'd be happy to pay you in cooking lessons."

"That would be great!" Renji exclaimed. "Also, these cookies are great."

"I already packed some up for you, along with another jar of takuan and one of red ginger I put up last week."

"Oh, Tomoe will be so happy," Renji sighed with relief.

Mrs. Kuwashima nodded knowingly. "When do I get to meet her, by the way?"

"I don't think she's real," the ghost announced. "Who on earth would marry this guy?"

"I could bring her by on Sunday afternoon," Renji offered. For some strange reason, he liked the idea of showing Rukia off to Mrs. Kuwashima.

"Why don't you come for dinner?" Mrs. Kuwashima suggested. "You can come a little early and help me cook."

"Sure, sounds great," Renji agreed, his mouth half full of cookie.

The ghost huffed, and rudely reached across the table toward the plate of cookies, not paying the least bit of attention to Renji's tea.

It was a ploy, it was obvious in retrospect. Ghosts didn't eat cookies. A ghost would not knock over his teacup. But on instinct, Renji snatched it up, trying to avoid a lap full of scalding water.

Mrs. Kuwashima raised her eyebrows and smiled smugly. "Now, does Tomoe see ghosts, as well, or is it just you?"

* * *

"Son of a _bitch_," Rukia murmured.

Sunadori peeked up over the top edge of her laptop. "Ms. Satonaka?"

Rukia cleared her throat quickly. "Oh, sorry, ma'am! Um, I emailed Dr. Minakata with those questions about the yellowtail, and he answered the _first one_, and not any of the others. The entire email he sent me just says 'Yes.'"

Sunadori nodded knowingly. "This is your first job in a large office, isn't it?"

"Um, yes."

"Don't feel bad. This isn't something you learn at school."

"Can I go yell at him?" Rukia asked hopefully.

"No, you can't, unfortunately. Because then he'll just answer your question verbally, and it's science gobbledegook, you'll get it wrong when you try to write it down. The reason we emailed him is so we can paste whatever he says directly into this report for the Board, you understand?" She pushed herself up from her desk to stand behind Rukia.

"But if I email him back, what if he just writes me a bad answer again?"

"Open up a reply. I am going to teach you how to write a _strongly worded email_."

"Like, with cusses?"

"No, no. It's… the opposite of cursing. Saying things that are very polite, except that they are actually very rude."

Rukia's brows creased.

"You'll understand as we go. So. Start out with '_Per my last email _…'"

Rukia caught on almost as soon as Sunadori started narrating. This was _Byakuya _stuff. Still, though, she was pretty impressed with some of Sunadori's cutting turns of phrase, she was going to have to remember some of these for him.

"...and then name drop me at the end. 'Ms. Sunadori is looking forward to receiving your response by COB today. Oh. CC me on this."

"Wow," Rukia appraised. "I feel like I would take physical damage if I received this email."

"Precisely," Sunadori replied. "Hit send!"

Rukia hit send. "Thank you, ma'am, for your kindness!"

Sunadori regarded her with lidded eyes. "I just like writing nasty-grams."

"I'm just not very experienced and I am learning so much from you and I appreciate your patience!" Rukia blurted out.

Sunadori's mouth ticked up in a half smile. "You're a weird kid," she said, even though she was hardly any older than Rukia was supposed to be. "This is just a dumb office job, you know. I only take it as seriously as I do because it's deathly boring otherwise. If you need help with stuff, just ask. I'm not… _that _mean."

"Oh," Rukia replied. "I mean, you're not mean at all!"

Sunadori hadn't gone back to her desk yet. She was scrutinizing the picture Rukia had propped up on her desk behind her pen cup. "Who's this?" she asked, clearly trying to imitate a friendly person. "Your brother?"

"Ah, no, that's my husband," Rukia replied.

"Hmm," Sunadori appraised. "He's cute. He's in the military?"

"He's out, now," Rukia explained. This had taken a turn. This was very weird.

"What does he do, then?" her boss insisted.

"He cooks rice," she came back with. "Er, I mean, he's recovering from a bad injury. He's walking again, but he's still got some pretty bad PTSD and he's not ready to go back to work yet." She sat up straight, and tried to channel her inner Orihime. "So, I'm the breadwinner for our family!"

Sunadori was looking at her with… was that pity?

"Oh, don't feel bad for us," Rukia flapped one hand. "We inherited an old house down by the shore, and he's having a good time puttering around. He has his bad days, but I think Kurage Bay is going to be very good for him." She beamed.

Sunadori had a strange look on her face. It looked a lot like when Byakuya was trying not to have an emotion. "Well. When he's ready to go back to work, you should let me know. I know a lot of business owners in this town, I'm sure I could find him something right away."

"Thank you, Ms. Sunadori," Rukia said, very formally.

Sunadori snapped back to herself. "Did you ever finish up that balance sheet I asked for this morning? I'll need to check over your work before we send it down to accounting, and I'm not staying late because you're so slow!"

"Yes, ma'am!"

* * *

It was Friday. Rukia had made it through her first week. She hadn't gotten fired. She was going to have an entire two days off to devote to investigating the smoke Hollow and maybe sparring again and maybe even managing to sleep in. Rukia took a deep breath as she stepped to the front of the bus, just so she could let it out when she stepped to the ground.

Renji was waiting for her.

The breath sputtered out rather ungracefully. "What are you doing here?" she demanded.

"Happy Friday!" he announced cheerfully. "I have a surprise for you."

"A surprise? What kind of surprise?"

"It wouldn't be a very good surprise if I told you, would it?" He started down the dirt road, waving his hand for her to follow. "Let's go."

They started out in the general direction of home, but he took the left where the path branched off down to the shore.

"Is it related to the Hollow?" Rukia tried to guess.

Renji may have rolled his eyes. "It is not."

She huffed through her nose. "I don't care for surprises."

"Whatever, Byakuya."

Rukia gasped.

Renji raised his eyebrows. "Go on. Say 'how dare you!' like you want to and prove my point."

"I was just surprised. I've wasn't sure you even know you knew his given name," she muttered instead.

Renji laughed, not his usual snort, but an actual, open laugh. "Anyway, here we are. Surprise!"

Rukia looked around and blinked, trying to figure out what she was looking at. He had cleaned out the old fire pit they had found on one of their ghost hunts, and filled it with firewood. There were two old beach chairs pulled up near it, a cooler sitting between them, and a pile of foil-wrapped yams piled next to that.

"We're… having a campfire?" she frowned.

"Yeah! I got a bunch of mackerel to roast. It's in the cooler with the beer." He scratched his head. "Maybe I shouldn't have put them in there together."

"You're an idiot," she informed him.

"Yup," he replied brightly, hunkering down next to the fire to get it started.

"Aren't we going to go ghost hunting tonight?" she protested.

"Nah, I'm tired of it. And we're out here, maybe the ghosts will come to us. If I were a ghost, I would turn up for a campfire."

"You _are _a ghost."

"And here I am!"

She flopped into one of the chairs. "You're impossible."

He looked up from his firestarting. "If you don't want to do this, we can go back to the house. You used to like campfires."

Rukia frowned. She _did _like campfires. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been to one. This just felt… wrong. Indulgent. Lazy. "We need to eat, I guess," she conceded. "Why are you being so weird?"

The fire caught. "Me?" Renji blinked. "Am I?"

Rukia tried to collect her thoughts, pin down what was wrong. "We're on a mission, but you've been completely relaxed the whole time. I've seen you put more work into planning a futsal practice than finding this monster. All you care about is cooking. It's not you at all."

"That's not true," Renji rebutted, digging out some little divots for the sweet potatoes. "I spent all afternoon caring about this fire pit." He looked up at her. "You should help me with these yams, or I'll eat them all myself."

She sighed, and brought some of the yams over.

"Rukia, if this smoke guy showed up here, right now, and we tamed it with grilled fish and crummy beer, what would happen?"

"We could go back to Soul Society."

"Yeah. Hang out at Squad 2, polishing Omaeda's collection of gaudy necklaces."

Rukia's mouth made a hard line.

Renji was quiet for a minute. "Look. Maybe it's different for me. Your life back in Soul Society is a lot nicer than mine." Rukia started. Did he really think that? "Don't get me wrong! I like my life a lot! I got a lot of good friends, and I got my futsal team, and I-" he almost choked on the next words, "and I really like being at the Sixth. I wanted it for so long, just to prove that I could do it, and it never occurred to me that I would actually _like _it." They had finished with the potatoes, and he took a moment to build up the fire. It made a lot of smoke, and he had to wipe his eyes. "Anyway, you remember why we became Soul Reapers in the first place?"

Rukia shrugged. "To protect people. To help lost souls. To fight Hollows."

"I didn't ask what Soul Reapers were good for, I asked what two dummies from Inuzuri studied their butts off and walked through seventy-seven districts for." He handed her a long stick, and then flipped the cooler open and pulled out a newspaper-wrapped packet of fish.

"To have a nice life," Rukia mumbled, accepting a fish from him. "To not die in the dirt."

"Yeah. And at first, I was pretty happy with three hots and a cot in exchange for knocking Kira on the head with a wooden sword every day." He opened up a couple of beers and handed her one. It smelled a little fishy. "Over time, it became what you said. A duty. A calling. But the Seireitei takes, Rukia. It gives, but it takes more. It took you. I became someone different at 11. Someone better, I think, but I'm not always sure. I've almost died, more than a few times. I've almost lost most of my friends, including you, more than a few times. And after all that, after forty-five years of blood and sweat and pain and grief, they took my badge, just like that."

He sat down, perched on the edge of his chair, having found a good spot in the fire for his fish. "So, then they sent us on this mission. Me an' my best friend, in this nice little house, with plenty to eat, more than we ever dreamed of as kids, and all I have to do is stick my zanpakutou in some Hollow if he ever feel like showing his ugly snout." He turned to look at her. The sun was nearly down, and the fire caught at the edges of his features. "I assure you I am taking this mission very seriously. But I'll be damned if anyone tells me not to enjoy it, 'cause I'm gonna." He took a long drag from his beer and turned his eyes back to the fire.

Rukia futzed with her fish, which didn't seem to be cooking very quickly. She had to blink some smoke out of her eyes. Why was he always like this?

When they were kids, when he first started growing tall, and his shoulders were suddenly so broad, she would sometimes catch herself staring at him and wondering what the strange feelings in her chest were. They weren't love, not exactly. You didn't wake up in love with someone who was just a friend the day before. And then he would bash his head into something while showing off, or would claim to be better than her at something that everyone knew she was the best at, and those feelings would fly right out the window, forgotten.

Now, it was the opposite. She found him attractive, she admitted it, she had made her peace with it. It was just a crush, though, the sort of weird crush that normal people had on their best friends, and usually, she could push it to the back of her mind. And then he would go and say these insanely thoughtful, heartfelt things, and she felt like she was drowning, that her heart couldn't hold everything she felt for him. It made her feel small, small and selfish. He was the most amazing friend, and she, a dummy, couldn't accept such a gift without falling for him like an asshole. She had never seen him in love. She couldn't imagine what he would be like in love, how it would feel to be loved by him.

"Rukia?"

"What?" she snuffled, rubbing at her eye with the palm of her hand.

"Your fish is on fire."

"Oh. Oh!" Rukia jerked it out of the fire and blew on it helplessly. It wasn't badly burned, just a little blackened and quite overdone.

"Here, you can have mine," he said, offering his own, which was, of course, crispy and perfect-looking.

"Why are you always like this?" Rukia said, out loud this time. "Keep your own perfect fish. I can eat my own mistakes."

He shrugged. "Your problem is-"

Her lips turned down, braced for the criticism, already brewing a comeback.

"-that you haven't had any of your beer. How can you grill fish if you aren't drinking at the same time?" Oh.

"We grilled fish all the time in Rukongai and we never had beer then."

"Yeah, and we constantly set them on fire, just like that." He laughed, and launched into a long-winded reminiscence about Mameji and Kosaburou. Rukia felt her shoulders relax. It was safer when the ghosts of their friends were with them. She closed her eyes and took a long drink of beer, letting it wash away the complexities of her emotions. Maybe it was okay to just want to sit here, by this fire, with her friends, forever. They could chase monsters tomorrow.

* * *

Renji was very tired and very full of yams when he finally crawled into his futon after showering off all the woodsmoke. He was pretty sure he had gotten Rukia to relax, at least a little. He wasn't quite sure why she was wound so tight in the first place. Maybe she missed her brother. Maybe she missed Ichigo. Maybe she hated it here. She was the one who had to go to the crummy job with the mean boss.

There were five taps on the frame of the shoji: four shorts followed by one long.

"Rukia, for the love of little fishes, we're the only ones here!" he groaned.

The shoji slide open about four inches, and Rukia's eyes peered in. "Renji?"

"Yeah?"

"My life's not better."

"Huh?" He was really _very _tired.

"You said that my life, back in Soul Society, was probably better than yours. And it's not. I mean, there's some nice stuff about living with the Kuchikis, for sure, but it's also really restrictive and lonely. I like being here with you. I think I- I'm afraid that if I don't focus on the mission, I might like it too much."

"It's too late for that kinda thinking, Ru. Go to sleep."

"Can I leave the shoji open? Just this much? I sleep better when I can hear you breathing."

Renji squeezed his eyes shut. He knew perfectly well that what she really wanted was to come in here and crawl under the covers with him. Why wouldn't she? He wanted that, too, of course, but it was a bridge too far. He'd fall down into her gravity well and never be able to climb out. If he woke up in the morning, his nose buried in her hair, brain hazed with sleepy contentment, how could he keep his fool mouth from whispering the dangerous truth into her ear? It hurt both of them to keep her at arm's length, but they were going to need their friendship to make it through these lonely months of exile. It wasn't his place to put it at risk. "Fine," he called.

"Renji?"

"Yeah?"

"It was a nice surprise. Thanks."

"We can do it again, whenever you want."

"Okay. Let's."

"Rukia?"

"Yeah?"

"Go to sleep, now. Please. I'm begging you."

"Okay. G'night. I'll see you in the morning."

Despite himself, Renji smiled. Yep. He sure would.

~ end part 5


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

* * *

It was past eight when Rukia woke up the next morning. She had a mild headache and a dry mouth. She peered through the partially open shoji. Renji was still asleep, snoring softly. The Onmitsukidou hadn't given her the sort of loose, casual dresses she generally preferred, so she pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, and zipped a hoodie printed with fat, sleeping cats overtop. She padded out to the kitchen. The floor was cold, and she liked the feel of it on her bare feet.

There was no way she was touching Renji's precious rice cooker, but she thought she could handle miso soup. You just added hot water, right? She filled the kettle and lit a burner. How long did it take water to boil, anyway? She pulled a chair into the kitchen so she could watch it.

She had almost fallen back asleep again, when she heard footsteps behind her.

"If you're trying to boil water, you should turn that up to high," Renji informed her with a yawn. His hair stuck up charmingly. "G'morning."

"Oh, look who's an expert now," she sniffed, turning the burner up.

"That's a cute sweatshirt," he observed, and wandered out of the kitchen again.

A few minutes later, she juggled two bowls of soup and the teapot out to the table.

He had a bunch of papers spread out all over it, and he scrambled to scoot them out of the way.

"What is all this?" she asked, as he relieved her of one of the soup bowls.

"Soooo…" he explained, pulling one sheet of paper to the top. "I told you I've been working on the mission. This is the map Ozui gave us of all the known smoke monster attacks. I thought we might go into town today and visit some of the sites?"

"Oh. That sounds like a good idea." She realized she had forgotten teacups and also spoons, and headed back to the kitchen.

"Yeah, I'm not sure there'll be much left to sense- the last attack was three weeks ago, but I figured we should check them out from newest to oldest, anyway. I'm trying to figure out the best route that gets them roughly in that order."

"Makes sense." Rukia handed him his spoon and cup, and paused to stare over his shoulder at the map, willing her brain to make some sense out of the marks on it. "Unlike this attack pattern."

Renji nodded in agreement. "I'm hoping that maybe if we visited them, they might make more sense."

* * *

"Well, this definitely seems like a good place to murder someone," Rukia decreed.

Location number one was an alley behind a row of seedy bars. This was actually the second most-recent murder, but it was closer to the bus stop. Two shinigami had died here. Rukia touched the scummy brick wall tentatively, trying to detect any traces of reiatsu. She had a sense of old smoke, but it was hard to disentangle from the stale cigarette stench in the alley. It didn't feel Hollow-like at all. It didn't feel like anything she recognized. There were few traces of the shinigami; they had been very young and not very powerful.

Renji flipped through the notes Ozui had given them. "The human was found very full of alcohol, assumed death by, oh, that's nice, choking on his own vomit. Hmm, this is interesting. There was a human who called 119, apparently while the victim was still alive. Steve Something-I-Can't-Pronounce. A Westerner, I guess? I wonder if he was just a passerby, or if he worked in one of these bars."

Together, they scanned the names of the nearby storefronts.

On the second story, above one of the bars, an airbrushed sign advertised "Lucky Steve's". A neon sign underneath blazed "Tattoos."

Renji's eyes went wide.

Rukia sighed. "Solving a mystery by shooting the breeze with some tattoo guy. This is obviously your life's purpose. How about I go check out #2 on the list, and we meet up at #3 at…" she glanced at her watch, "3?"

"This is My Time," he murmured.

She patted him on the shoulder. "Go for it, big guy."

* * *

The next site was a fairly busy public park.

The victim here, three attacks back, had been an early morning jogger, who allegedly died of a heart attack. It was a big park, and Rukia wasn't exactly sure where the attack might have taken place. As she let her spiritual senses wander, she realized there was a Plus around here somewhere.

He wasn't too hard to locate.

Some children were luring pigeons in with bread scraps, and then poking them with sticks while they squawked. The Plus was an older man, wearing a hat and a trenchcoat, who was shouting fruitlessly at the children.

Rukia put on a stern face, and marched up to them. "Hey! Don't you kids know those are rare Silver Banded Pigeons? There's a 10,000 yen fine for hurting them."

"What are you, a cop?" one of the kids demanded.

"Cops don't wear sweatshirts with kittens on them," another kid sneered.

"I'm just a girl with two fists who loves birds," Rukia replied, rolling up her sleeves.

"She's got crazy eyes, let's get outta here," one of the kids elbowed the other. They scrammed.

"Oh, my poor babies," the ghost wailed, crouching over the pigeons, who cared only about the bread scraps. "You're so thin. Practically wasting away!"

"How long have you been hanging around here?" Rukia asked conversationally, flopping down on the nearest bench.

The ghost's head turned slowly. "You can see me?"

"Sure," Rukia replied.

The ghost clutched at his pigeons, but his hands passed through them. "I didn't think normal people could see me. Only those frightening people, all in black, and the monsters who ate that other spirit."

Rukia's eyebrows shot up. "Tell me about the monsters."

"I don't want to talk about it!"

Rukia contemplated the best tack to take. She could threaten to call the shinigami on him. She didn't really want to do that- after all, she _was _going to call in a konsou on him. Unlike the fixed-location ghosts in the woods, his chain was broken. He needed to move on.

"What if they came back? What if they tried to eat you?"

"They weren't interested in me," the ghost frowned. "I don't think I was fresh enough."

"They knocked the spirit out of a human and ate it, huh?" Rukia led.

"How did you know?" the ghost whimpered, wringing his hands. "It was horrifying."

"I'm trying to stop them," Rukia explained. "We don't want anyone else- human or pigeon- to get hurt."

The ghost's eyes darted to his pigeons. "They might attack my pigeons?"

Rukia shrugged, leaving the possibility open.

The ghost took a deep breath. "A man was here, sitting on this bench. I didn't think much of him, although he was in the park much earlier than most people. A woman ran by, and all this… smoke came out of the man. It grabbed at her. It killed her. She was a ghost, like me, only her chain was still attached to her body."

Rukia nodded. "What did the man look like?"

"I don't know. I didn't really start paying attention until she started screaming. She was very confused. The smoke went back to the man, and it surrounded him. I don't know what he looked like. Then I heard another scream, like an animal. Like a monster. The woman tried to run away, but she couldn't, she couldn't get away from her body. I hid. The monster came."

Rukia hated doing this. The ghost was really scared. "It's okay. You've being really, really helpful," she urged it on.

"It looked like a sea creature, like from a monster movie. It was wet and rubbery looking, with a hard, bony face. It… it ate her. I ran away. I'm sorry. I don't know any more."

"The man was still there? The whole time?"

"I think so. I can't be sure."

Rukia smiled at him. "Thank you. I can bring your pigeons some bread, if you want."

His eyes lit up. "Really? Oh, thank you, miss."

"Sure. One more thing, though- those people in black that you saw? Like, old-fashioned samurai clothes? Maybe they carried swords?"

The ghost nodded frantically.

"If they come back, don't hide from them. They'll help you pass on to the next life. It's nice there. There are pigeons there, too."

"I'll think about it," the ghost said hesitantly.

"It was right around here?" Rukia asked.

The ghost pointed. "On that path over there."

Rukia walked over to the spot he indicated, feeling around. There was that choking smokey energy again. There was the faint echo of a death as well, nearly gone. What there wasn't, was Hollow. Rukia frowned. There should have been something, unless… unless the Hollow was cleansed. Hollows tended to take all traces of themselves with them when they were killed. But the mission notes said the shinigami had been killed here, before taking care of the Hollow. Perhaps this one had been taken care of at some later point. She would have to ask Ozui.

* * *

It was close to 3:30 by the time Rukia caught up with Renji at the third site, the most recent one. She had texted to let him know she was running late.

"Sounds like you had some luck," he noted.

She relayed what she had learned from the ghost.

"Crap," he said, rubbing the back of his head. "Hiding in a human. I don't like that."

"Me either," she agreed. "No wonder no one's been able to sense it." She frowned. "I also want to know what happened to that Hollow."

"No kiddin'."

"How'd it go for you?"

"So, I guess Lucky Steve is an American," Renji explained. "And next week is some sort of Western holiday? He's out of the country. I made an appointment to talk to him when he gets back."

Rukia crossed her arms across her chest, tilted her head and raised one eyebrow. She knew exactly where this was going. "An appointment? You 'made an appointment' to talk to him about a dead guy he found in an alley?"

"Well, more like an appointment for, um, a consult."

"A tattoo consult."

"Most tattoo artists get really chatty while they're working and-"

"So what, after that, you have to go in _again _and get an actual tattoo?"

"His work is really nice."

"Couldn't you just get a walk-in?"

"Tomoe! He's not gonna be nearly as chatty to a _walk-in _. Also, what do you take me for? A _walk-in _. What would I get? An _anchor _?"

Rukia frowned. "My name, perhaps. The love of your life. Maybe in a heart."

His face crumpled. "I _guess _."

She elbowed him in the ribs. "C'mon, doofus, you know I was messing with you. So what are you thinking for real?" There was no chance that he had not already deeply considered this.

"Well, I didn't think it was a good idea to get my old stripes back, since we're supposed to be incognito, but I was thinking… _skulls _."

* * *

"So, this is the big week," Ozui announced, his eyes skimming the town map spread over their dining table. "Let's go over the plan."

Rukia and Renji nodded.

"Full moon is Friday. Your primary goal is to kill the Hollow, preferably before it eats any humans. If you run into the smoke thing, incapacitate or kill it if you can. Try not to let it kill you."

"Soi Fon says it sometimes shows up in the days before or after the full moon," Rukia noted.

"We've found its signature in the logs. We've never seen it, we don't know what it's doing. We're watching for it this time, but the signatures are usually very brief. Even if we get a reading, it's doubtful it will still be there by the time someone gets there. In any case, one of the two of you should be on call, let's say starting on Wednesday, and running through next Tuesday. Don't go looking for it, we want you to save your energy for the big guy on Friday, assuming he shows. We make it through Friday, we can change our minds afterward."

"You geniuses come up with any ideas on how to fight the thing?" Renji asked.

"Eh? Look, all we know about it is some screams over the radio. Try some stuff. Let us know what works. Your best bet is to gather information, and then we'll use the next month to come up with a plan of attack." He frowned. "That reminds me: unless you're dying or you're about to kill the thing, remember to stay in your gigai, you got it, Abarai? You blow your cover, you're going home."

"Yes," Renji groaned. "I remember."

"Kuchiki, you have free reign, but no bankai, okay?"

"I don't have bankai."

"Oh, no? I thought one of you did."

"It's me," Renji grouched.

"Really? She seems like more the type."

"Thank you," Rukia replied smugly.

"I am sure this is going to go great," Ozui announced. "I feel very confident in both of you."

Renji wished he could say the same.

* * *

Rukia had picked up a few skirts when they were in the town the day previous, and she felt much more like herself. This was good, because she wasn't feeling very much at all like herself, standing outside a human witch's house, holding a bottle of sake, Renji's hand on her back like some sort of doting husband.

"Are you sure sake is a good gift?" she had asked him. "She's an old lady."

"Have you ever met an old lady?" he had replied.

"Oooh, lovely!" the old lady in question cooed as Rukia thrust it at her. "Come on in, ducks, it's cold."

Renji's hand wasn't on her back out of any kind of affection- he had a soul removal glove on underneath his winter glove, which he theorized would help push her past the threshold barrier. Rukia slid her own similarly clad hand up to a reasonably affectionate position on the small of his back, and they took a determined step forward together. There was an unpleasant tug of war in her body, but Renji's firm hand pushed her through. Rukia wondered what the ward was _supposed _to keep out. She wished she could get a good look at it. It didn't feel like kidou at all. It must be human magic.

Renji nudged her and she remembered she was a guest, not here to investigate strange spells. They bowed formally together.

"Mrs. Kuwashima, this is my beautiful wife, Satonaka Tomoe!" Renji announced. Rukia stepped on his foot. Why was he such a goob, even undercover? "Tomoe, this is our generous neighbor, Mrs. Kuwashima."

Two could play at this game. "Thank you, Mrs. Kuwashima, for teaching my husband to be less terrible at cooking! I owe you my life!"

"Man, she's just like him."

Mrs. Kuwashima looked over her shoulder. "And this is my daughter, Mitsuki."

"I'm dead," Mitsuki added informatively.

"Mitsuki forgets her manners because it's been so long since we've had company," Mrs. Kuwashima scolded. "Come along, Mr. Satonaka, are you ready to learn to fry tofu?"

"Just need my apron," Renji replied.

Rukia made a choked noise.

"You're welcome to join us, dear, or just relax," Mrs. Kuwashima suggested, as Renji followed her toward the kitchen.

"I'll just stay here and chat with Mitsuki!" Rukia replied cheerfully. As much as she wanted to see Renji in his apron, he had suggested earlier that it might be helpful if one of them could try to talk to the ghost alone.

"I'm not very interesting," the ghost warned. "I don't get out much. I've been haunting my mom's house for the last seventeen years."

"You could tell me about your unfinished business," Rukia suggested. "Most of the ghosts I've known love to talk about their unfinished business."

Mitsuki rolled her eyes. "More like Mom's unfinished business. She had me bound to my old class ring so that I could stay with her."

"Oh, is that how that works?" Rukia feigned ignorance. "I've seen a lot of ghosts with broken chains, and one or two that were tied to something big. There's one down near our house that's tied to a tree."

"You probably know more about ghosts than I do. I'm the only one I've ever met. I know most of 'em move on right away, and it's bad to go around with a broken chain. There's some kind of grim reapers that go around and clean up those. Mum's got the house warded against them, just in case."

Rukia widened her eyes in surprise. That explained the door ward, then. The gigais must have helped them get through. She didn't know there were human wards against shinigami. "Have they ever tried to come get you? Are they big and scary?"

"Not that I know of. Never seen one. I think they look like ghosts, but without chains. They dress all in black and carry swords." Mitsuki sucked her teeth. "Your guy has a little trouble with those wards. You know where he goes at night?"

"Trouble with them?" Rukia echoed blankly.

"Whatever," Mitsuki sighed. "Never mind."

"So your mom can do magic? You said she bound you to that ring?"

Mitsuki shook her head. "She can do some magic, but herb witch stuff. Luck charms, make plants grow faster, talk to animals. Small time crap. I was going to be a much better witch, you know."

Rukia raised her eyebrows.

"But as it turns out, messing around with dark forces beyond your ken is bad for your health, so here we are. I don't want to go into it, it was a very embarrassing death. Anyway, at the time, we had an _itako, _a medium, in town. She was a scary old bitch, but she was the real deal. She was the one who did the binding."

Some excited shouting came from the kitchen.

"Enough about me," the ghost sniffed. "What the hell is up with that guy? I mean, he's what, twenty-five? Why does he like hanging out with old ladies so much?"

"He's… going through some stuff?" Rukia shrugged.

The ghost shook her head. "Well, not for nothing, but Mom's really perked up since she met him, so thanks, I guess. I'm telling you that so I don't have to tell him."

Rukia guessed that after seventeen years of boredom, even if Mitsuki didn't _like _Renji, at least he was something new to gripe about.

"You wanna hear some dumb stories about him?"

"Yes," the ghost girl replied. "Yes, I do."

* * *

"What!" Ms. Sunadori demanded, slamming her hand down on Rukia's desk, "are you doing for Christmas?"

Rukia jumped, looking up wildly from the memo she had been trying to draft. Sunadori had been in something very important called a "bored meeting" this morning that she had been stressing out over for days. Rukia had hoped that maybe the rest of the day might be a little more relaxed once it was over and done with.

No such luck.

"Out with it! What romantic thing do you have planned with Cutie-Face?"

"With who?" Rukia sputtered.

"Where do you have your Christmas Eve dinner reservations? Did you get him something nice?"

Rukia cringed. "Well, uh, with the move, everything's been so hectic… we kinda forgot about it?"

"Satonaka! It's this Friday! That's three days from now! You'll never get reservations now. It's probably even too late to order your fried chicken."

Rukia shrugged. "It's not a big deal. Money's a little tight anyway. I'm sure we'll have a nice evening at home."

Sunadori slapped her hand on Rukia's desk again. "Unacceptable!" She scowled. "I don't have a boyfriend right now, so I'm having a big Christmas Eve party for all my friends. You should come."

"Oh, Ms. Sunadori, I don't think-"

"To be honest, it will be much nicer than any of the crummy restaurants in this town. There aren't that many interesting people in this stupid tiny town, but I know all of them, and they'll be there. It's settled, you're coming. Try to look better than… this." She gestured at Rukia's skirt and cardigan. "Also, get- what's his real name again?"

"Takeru."

"Get Takeru a nice present. I want to hear all about it next week."

Rukia sighed. "All right."

* * *

"It doesn't sound like such a bad idea to me," Renji pointed out over dinner. "I mean, the obvious dude to sink the ship was the fishery owner, right? The party's at his house? We could scope it out."

"I hadn't thought of that," Rukia said, tapping her chin.

"Also, it's on the 24th? That's the full moon. We decided we wanted to be in town that night anyway. The high tide is late evening, around midnight, I think? It seems like it would work out."

"Hmm. Another good point."

Renji shrugged. "What is Crispmus anyway?"

"It's 'Christmas', you dope. It's a Western holiday that's caught on here. Remember how there were all those light displays when we were in town last week? And the big tree? That was part of it."

"Oh. Will we still celebrate New Year's?" He looked worried.

"Yeah, of course. But New Year's is more about family and Christmas is more...y'know." Rukia took a deep breath through her nose. "Romantic."

"How would I know? I just found out about it five minutes ago. How do _you _know about it?"

"I, uh, read a lot of Orihime's romance manga. There were a couple of Christmas storylines, and I had to get her to explain it to me."

Renji nodded slowly. "And I have to get you a present?"

"You certainly do not. I can just lie to Sunadori."

"I'm gonna get you something."

"_ Renji _."

"Do I have to cook something special?"

"No."

"I'll find out. I have my ways."

Rukia rolled her eyes. "Fine. There's cake."

Renji made a face. "I've had some bad experiences with cake."

Rukia squinted at him. "How do you have a bad experience with cake?"

Renji was mumbling to himself now. "If Yumichika and Hanatarou can make a cake, I am sure I can make a cake."

Rukia shook her head. "You did a really good job on this chicken. This is probably the best thing you've made yet."

He _beamed _. Rukia was almost sorry she'd complimented him, a thought that she immediately regretted. He was working really hard at something he wasn't good at, and she'd been giving him crap for it the whole time. She frowned, and poked at her greens. "I'm sorry I've been so mean to you about the cooking thing. I mean, it's completely unnecessary, I don't know why you're trying so hard. But I'm glad it makes you happy. And you are improving." She looked up at him through her bangs.

Renji was smiling. He looked so stupidly content.

"Thanks, Rukia. I know it's not what you're used to. You've been very patient."

She scoffed. "Hardly. You put up with too much. Is anyone _ever _nice to you?"

He chuckled. "I wouldn't know what to do if they were."

Her heart squeezed a little. He played it off, the way he played off everything, but he was nice to her far more often than she was nice to him. "Let's do Christmas presents!" she exclaimed.

His eyebrows shot up.

"2500 yen limit. Be creative."

"You're on."

* * *

"Are there other witches who live in town?" Renji asked conversationally, as he tried and failed to separate an egg.

"Oh, sure, lots," Mrs. Kuwashima nodded. "Most of them are in my mah jongg club."

"I know you said you didn't mess around with death stuff, but…do you know anyone…"

Mrs. Kuwashima put her hands on her hips. "Don't even think about it."

He made a face. "I'm...just trying to figure this out, is all. I thought it might be good to talk to someone."

"What about Tomoe? You said she's seen ghosts her whole life."

Renji rubbed his neck, trying to look lost and confused. "Yeah, and it's just normal for her. Her grandma could do it, too. It doesn't seem normal at all to me. Also, it happened after I almost died myself. What does that mean? I'm kinda worried that my soul isn't attached to my body real well anymore. Every time I walk through your dumb door ward, it feels like its getting pushed back out again." He was exceedingly proud of this excuse.

"Look, sport," Mrs Kuwashima said, cracking another egg. "First off, it's like this: pour it from one shell to the other, use the edge of the shell to catch the yolk and pour off the rest into the bowl. Second, weird things happen in your life and it's hard to understand why. It seems like there's someone out there who has answers for you, but there are just going to be more questions at the other end of those answers."

Mitsuki wasn't around today. Renji hadn't quite figured out how she worked- if she just became invisible, or if going into her ring was like sleeping, or maybe she was just somewhere else in the house at the moment.

"Your daughter-" he started, keeping his voice low.

"Also wanted answers about why she was so special," Mrs. Kuwashima answered sternly. "The ghosts won't hurt you. Mind your own business. It sounds like you've already had more than your fair share of second chances in life. Don't push it."

"Okay," he grudgingly agreed.

She patted his shoulder. "Magic seems very exciting and interesting, but it's mostly a hassle, and sometimes it tries to kill you. There's a lot that's exciting and interesting in the world when we actually pay attention to it." She pressed another egg into his hand.

Renji cracked it on the edge of the bowl, and carefully transferred the yolk back and forth between the two shells, letting the white drip off into the bowl. "Hey, I did it!" He held out his eggshell, a round, golden yolk cradled inside.

"Excellent," she replied. "Now do five more."

* * *

It was lunchtime, but Rukia, ever the over-achiever, was eating at her desk, a large book titled "Taking Your Spreadsheets to the Next Level (with Exercises)" propped in front of her. Renji had packed her some rice balls. The filling was far, far too spicy, and tears were running down her face. She really hoped he remembered what he had put in them because they were tremendous.

Suddenly, there was a movement behind her. Between her watering eyes, burning tongue, and hand full of rice, Rukia couldn't react in time as Sunadori snatched her spreadsheet book away, to reveal the romance manga she had hidden behind it.

"Uh, I was just…" Rukia sputtered.

Sunadori shot her a frosty look.

"Where did you come from? I didn't even hear you come in."

"This office is my kingdom, I come and go as I please. What have we got here? Hand it over."

Sighing, Rukia passed over her manga.

"Pro tip: Try not to ugly cry while you're reading, it's a dead giveaway."

"I wasn't actually crying because of the manga," Rukia excused. "I think Takeru put mustard gas in these onigiri."

"'Haia is a powerful business-woman,'" Sunadori read dramatically from the back cover. Rukia squeezed her eyes shut. "'Who drives her car into a snow drift on Christmas Eve!' Oh, cripes, who does she fall in love with? A Christmas tree farmer? A reindeer herder?"

"He runs a bakery," Rukia mumbled.

Sunadori nodded knowingly. "That's new. Less rugged than usual, but I could get behind baking. He changes her tire and then she helps him with all his Christmas Eve orders because he's running late now?"

"Yeah, obviously," Rukia replied, trying to seem casual.

"Is it any good?" Sunadori tilted her head. "I am a particular fan of this sub-genre."

Rukia blinked. "It had some good bits. Maybe the tears weren't 100% from the onigiri. Uh, am I in trouble or not?"

Sunadori propped her spreadsheet book back upright, and tucked the manga behind it. "I don't want to catch you reading this when you aren't on break, and you _will _loan it to me when you're done with it, got it?"

"Got it, ma'am."

"I didn't see a thing."

* * *

Renji flipped a page of his book. He realized he hadn't actually read it, and flipped it back. He glanced down at the spirit phone balanced on his knee. No calls from Ozui. He felt antsy.

He glanced down at Rukia, snoozing lightly. She was curled on her side, her fingers twitching as she dreamed. Since she still had to go to work in the morning, they had agreed he would be the one to stay up. The smoke monster had never showed up during the daytime, so he could nap in the morning.

There it was, just a whiff. He put his hand on her shoulder. "Ru." Her eyes shot open and she sat up, as alert as if she had never been asleep at all. "Do you feel that?"

"Push me out," she suggested and he bopped her on the back with his gloved hand. Her spirit form pulled loose from the gigai, her old familiar features pinched in concentration. "It's nearby. In the woods."

Still nothing from the Onmitsukidou.

"Go," Renji decided. "I'll catch up."

Rukia flash-stepped away.

The night was misty and damp, and he had to be careful of tree roots and wet leaves as he ran through the woods. Stupid gigai. Stupid undercover mission.

The smoky thread he was following became fainter. Damn.

"Over here!" Rukia called, standing by the large spreading oak where an angry ghost had screamed at him the week before.

"We were too slow?" he guessed.

"I caught a glimpse of it, but yeah," she agreed. She was holding something in her hand. It was a rapidly fading soul chain, one end wrenched apart, the other still attached to the tree. "But at least we know what it was doing."

~ end part 6


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

* * *

"You look like someone's dad," Rukia muttered under her breath as she rang the doorbell.

"That's bull, the only dad you know is Ichigo's and he would never dress like this."

"Fine, I'm sorry I had to say this, but you look like a high school math teacher."

"Wow. That's harsh, Tomoe."

"It's the corduroys. The corduroys are a bridge too far."

"Yeah, but I'm here with a hot chick, so joke's on you, sister."

"Keep it in your corduroys, buddy."

The door swung open.

Merry Christmas!" they recited in unison.

Sunadori blinked at them. "Satonaka. You came."

Rukia blinked back. "I… said I would, didn't I?" She elbowed Renji.

"We brought sake," he said, thrusting it out.

Sunadori overcame her surprise and accepted the bottle, making a face at the label, but recovering quickly. "Of course you did, please come in."

"This sure is a nice house," Rukia complimented as they hung up their coats in the entryway. She was wearing a cute sweater dress she had purchased for the occasion. She wondered if she was too casual. Sunadori was wearing an elegant green cocktail dress. Still, she was doing better than Renji, who was wearing a v-neck sweater over a plaid shirt. He even had a tie on. She didn't know he owned a tie. At least she'd convinced him not to wear his hair in a ponytail.

"It's Daddy's," she waved off. "He's taking his girlfriend out to dinner. This neighborhood is a snooze. I'm thinking of getting a flat in the resort part of town."

She led them into a living room filled with too many leather couches and the largest television either of them had ever seen. A dozen or so well-dressed young adults milled about, chatting and drinking. A few of them glanced over at their entrance.

"Yui! I think you're out of prosecco!" someone called.

"I'll be right in!" Sunadori shouted back. "Ugh, how can we be out already?"

"Who's this, Yui-chan?" a handsome young man intercepted them.

"Seiji, this is my employee, Satonaka Tomoe, and her husband Takeru. This is Nomura Seiji, he owns the Grey Pearl, the only decent seafood restaurant in town."

They exchanged greetings.

"I imagine your restaurant must be pretty busy tonight, Mr. Nomura," Rukia commented.

"Oh, sure," he shrugged. "Full of people proposing to each other and sappy music. Thank goodness I have staff to run it so I don't have to be there. Satonaka, you follow any football clubs?"

"Kyoto Sanga," Renji shrugged casually.

"Noooo!" Nomura clutched his chest in mock horror. "Ah, nothing for it. Oga's a Kyoto man, let me introduce you." He dragged Renji over to a knot of loud young men.

Sunadori rolled her eyes. "I should have known that would happen. You didn't say your husband was a football fan."

"Mmm," Rukia replied grumpily. Renji had been claiming that watching football was "relevant to their cover" and that it would "come in handy." He was going to be _intolerable _after this. Wait a second. Had he just said "Oga"? Rukia creased her brow, trying to look thoughtful. "Is Oga someone from work? That name sounds familiar."

Sunadori's lips grew thin. "Haruta's father used to be my father's business partner. The one who- you know. Don't mention it, got it? It's a sore subject."

"But he still comes to your parties?"

Sunadori cringed. "He was part of my friend group growing up. He's been away at school and just moved back last year. Everyone's mad at me for inviting him. He's gone a little strange. I don't want to go into it here, I can give you the lowdown later."

Rukia sucked her teeth. "You don't need to hang out with me, you know. I know how to hang out at the food table and avoid attention." I have been doing this at much fancier parties than this for longer than you've been alive, she did not add. Rukia glanced at her boss, usually so tough and confident. Her face was screwed up in the same irked sneer Byakuya made whenever the Ohno cousins came over for dinner. Rukia had a revelation. "Your friends are dicks, aren't they?" she whispered under her breath.

"Shut up!" Sunadori hissed.

"You invited me because you're tired of them and you want to complain about them to me later."

Sunadori looked stricken.

Rukia grinned. Now, she was on familiar ground.

* * *

Renji was very good at parties. This wasn't even a particularly high-skill party. There was a minor class divide, sure, but he had a whole routine for this. The trick was that fancy boys never liked to think of themselves as fancy boys. They liked to think that, if the situation called for it, they too could punch a man in the face or open a beer bottle on a table edge. You just had to tap into that. Renji had six fancy boys in his thrall at the moment.

"You ever play any ball yourself?" Nomura asked.

"We had a rec futsal league in the service," Renji shrugged. "I captained my squad's team." He sighed. It was a very real sigh. "We were undefeated up until I got injured."

"You're in the military?" another guy asked. If there was anything that fancy boys in any world liked, it was the military.

"You still play?" a fellow wearing boat shoes asked. "When the spring season starts up, my team could use someone who doesn't suck."

"Would love to," Renji shrugged, "but the reason I left the military is because I almost lost a leg." He gave his right thigh a pat. "This old thing could fall off at any time. I try not to tempt fate."

One of the rich boys laughed. "I broke a leg skiing once and was on crutches for eight weeks," he tried to empathize.

Up until now, Oga, the alleged Sanga fan and possible person-of-interest had hung back, looking like he was trying to imagine himself anywhere else. He'd grunted a few times at Renji's attempts to draw out football opinions. But now, he perked up. "You think your dumb drunk skiing accident was on the same level as that?" he accused.

"Well," the other guy stammered.

Oga turned to Renji, narrowing his eyes. "How close were you to dying?"

Renji was somewhat taken aback. "I, uh, actually died. Briefly."

Oga nodded approvingly. "What was it like?"

"C'mon, Oga! Not this again!"

"We finally get someone cool at one of these things, and you have to get in his face and be a weirdo."

"It's Christmas, dude."

"It's no big deal," Renji tried to excuse, but evidently, Oga had had enough.

"I'm just gonna get going anyway, you assholes are as boring as ever." He handed Renji a business card that didn't actually have a business on it, just his name and phone number. "Give me a call if you ever want to hang out. You seem interesting." He headed for the door, Sunadori trotting after him apologetically.

"Sorry about that, he's been strange ever since his dad passed," another of the fancy boys explained.

"Oh, that's rough," Renji echoed.

"He doesn't need to be such an asshole about it though. I mean, it was years ago."

"So, who's got a prediction for the Emperor's Cup?"

* * *

"I just don't have the forehead for bangs. Your bangs are great, you are really owning them."

Rukia could honestly not tell if this woman loved her bangs, or was insulting her bangs. She had no emotional attachment to the bangs, she still hadn't decided if they were more or less annoying than that one chunk of her real hair that always hung down in front of her face. Renji had once referred to it as her "natural kenseikan", and she had felt much more generous toward it since.

"Do you think I should get bangs?" Sunadori asked.

"Absolutely not," the other woman replied.

Rukia tried to subtly check the time on her phone, when she felt a hand on her shoulder, and a husky, "Hey, babe," dropped into her ear, and her stomach dropped into her shoes. Cripes, did he know how sexy it was when he did that? "We gotta head."

"We have to catch the bus!" she excused with a bow. "But thank you for inviting us, it was very nice!"

Sunadori looked a little sad. The other women looked vaguely disgusted at the prospect of riding a bus.

"Have a Merry Christmas! See you on Monday!"

"Where were you?" she hissed while they gathered coats and shoes.

"Sneaking around, while pretending to look for the bathroom," he shrugged. "No spooky rooms full of glowing portals to other dimensions, that's for sure. How about you?"

"I got to see the wine cellar," Rukia shrugged. "It was full of wine. No summoning circles or secret tomes."

"Sorry it was a bust. You ready to go fight some monsters?"

Rukia smiled wolfishly. "I was _born _ready."

* * *

"There sure are a lot of people out this late," Rukia murmured, as a laughing couple passed them, the man's arm curled around the woman's shoulder. She pulled out her soul pager and checked it for the hundredth time. "Still nothing from Ozui's crew."

"What time is it?" Renji asked. He held his head high, like a hound catching a far-off scent.

"11:52," Rukia replied. "High tide isn't until 1:17, we've got a-"

"Back toward Sunadori's neighborhood," he said, and started walking.

She scrambled to catch up with him, taking two steps for each one of his. Three blocks later, she caught a whiff of it, that stale, smokey reiatsu, and suddenly, it rolled over her, a morass, a choking, dry dust cloud.

Renji pulled his soul removal glove and worked it onto his hand.

There was a _thrum _in her head, and she felt the Hollow as well, wet and rotting.

The crowds were thinning out, but there were still too many people around. Rukia was looking around for an alley they could duck into, when Renji caught her suddenly by the waist, and pulled her into his embrace, rapping her sharply on back with his gloved hand. "_Go_," he whispered, as her soul flew out of her gigai, sailed through his own, and hit the ground running.

"Not in the middle of the sidewalk, buddy!" she heard someone yell as she ran.

"I just really love my wife and it's Christmas!" she heard Renj shout back.

It took her a moment to get her senses in order- out of the gigai, the shadow reiatsu was nearly overwhelming. She broke into shunpo.

There was a small parking area behind a fancy apartment building.

The woman was young, late twenties, maybe. She stood awkwardly, her back pressed against the brick of the building, her fingers scrabbling for purchase. Her eyes were wide and unseeing. Rukia's eyes darted from side to side, trying to process what she was seeing. Nothing else was here.

Suddenly, the woman's outline twitched and momentarily doubled.

Rukia quietly began the chant for _hainawa_.

The woman's soul tumbled out of her body, tripping and sobbing, trailing its chain. Dark, oily smoke began to pour from her body's ears, mouth and nose.

Rukia let the bakudou rip forth, where it wrapped around the woman's helpless body, pinning it to the wall. It seemed to have no effect on the smoke. Rukia pointed her finger, her voice rising with power as the rope of the spell stiffened into the golden blades of _rikujoukourou_. They slammed uselessly through the cloud of smoke.

Rukia snarled, and tried a _soukatsui _instead. Whether it did any damage, she couldn't tell. For a moment, the smoke monster mixed with the smoke of the spell, and then it started curling towards her, moving much faster than before. Rukia drew Sode no Shirayuki, and immediately began her release. The smoke was on her as she finished, pulling at her arms and legs. She slashed at it, and it shied from her blade, reforming around it instantly, swirling and licking at her zanpakutou. It didn't hurt, exactly, but she felt heavy, like she was being dragged down. She flash-stepped across the parking lot, and called out her first dance. The smoke seemed to be slow to reorient itself and most of it got caught in her ice pillar. There were a few seconds of quiet, and then it began to seep out of the sides. Rukia cursed, and began to search her mental inventory of options.

The woman's detached soul screamed, high and terrified, and Rukia's senses were flooded with Hollow. Her head whipped around, just in time to see Renji plunging his fist into the Hollow's face.

She fired off a _haien _at the smoke, skipping to the higher level spells. The flames of the hadou seemed to catch for just a second, but then smoke flowed free once again.

"Rukia, this guy's tougher than he looks! A little help!"

She turned on her heel.

The Hollow was small, but once she turned her attention to it, she realized it was very strong, very concentrated. It had huge, sharp claws, and a thick, horned mask. Renji was trying to maintain distance between it and the poor, shrieking woman. The sleeves of his coat were shredded and bloody. He could have made short work of it if he had his zanpakutou, but it was too strong against some measly gigai hakuda. "Its mask is thick as heck!" he yelled as she charged toward it.

"_San no mai, Shirafune_!" tore from her throat as she stabbed, her blade crusting with ice as she drove it home. Too late, she realized that dark smoke wreathed her sword, and swirled up her arm. What the _hell_? As the Hollow's mask began to disintegrate, the smoke flooded into the crack, and took on a dim, bluish glow. What was happening?

Suddenly, Rukia's arm was tugged stiffly, just as the Hollow's claw slashed upwards. She couldn't pull free, and her arm exploded in pain. She collapsed to her knees as the Hollow disintegrated. There was a sensation of planar distortion, like a teeny Garganta, and then the smoke was gone as well.

"Bakudou Number 4! _Hainawa!" _

A sudden pressure twisted around her upper arm.

Renji stepped in front of her protectively, fists clenched. "Where did it go? Is it gone?"

Rukia tried to extend her senses. She couldn't feel the Hollow or the smoke monster any more, but the pain from her arm was nauseating. Get up, Rukia, she urged herself. Brother wouldn't let this slow him down.

Renji's face swam into view. "How bad is it?"

"Are they gone?" she managed.

"I think so. I can't feel them anymore. Can you?"

"Can't feel much of anything."

"What is happening?" the human wailed. "Am I dead? Is that lady dead?"

Rukia grimaced. "We gotta get that woman back in her body. Do you… do you think you can do it? It's not that hard a spell-"

"I can do it," he replied. "Kaidou Number 6, right?"

"Yes. Don't shit me, Renji. It's her life here. I can do it-"

He looked her in the eyes very seriously. "I can do it. Now sit down before you pass out. I got that tourniquet on, but you've still lost a lot of blood. I'll get to you in a minute."

Rukia rolled onto her bottom. She desperately wanted to lie down, but she knew she should try to keep her heart above her arm. Why did it hurt so bad? She tried to look at it, and nearly threw up. The cuts were deep, down to the bone. Her arm was just ribbons of meat. Renji's dully glowing _hainawa _was holding everything together, in addition to cutting off her circulation. She'd never thought of using it as a tourniquet before.

Renji was very gently talking to the young woman, explaining what he was going to do. She nodded, her face full of trust. Rukia knew for a fact that his gigai had very nice eyes, which was probably helping. She tried to pay attention as he cast the kaidou, in case he screwed it up, but she was having a lot of trouble focusing.

The girl sat up, back in her own body. "Where'd the lady go?" she exclaimed.

There was a popping noise and a small puff of smoke. "We'll figure that out in a minute," he replied, and ran off somewhere.

Surely, it couldn't be that important to stay upright? Just a little rest and she would feel much better…

"Here we go, Ru! Back in the ol' gigai!" Renji dumped her gigai literally on top of her. Rukia _pushed _into it, and suddenly, her head cleared. "That should keep you stable until we can get you to a healer. How do you feel?"

"I feel...okay," Rukia said tentatively, flexing her arm experimentally. The pain had receded to an achy throb, but it was definitely still there.

An old car suddenly peeled into the parking lot, shedding rust and giving off the odor of burning oil. Ozui stuck his head out the window. "You two still alive?"

"Mostly," Renji replied.

The back doors opened, and Wada and another Onmitsukidou they didn't recognize piled out, neither in a gigai. "What's the damage?" Ozui asked.

"Uh… one human in the process of getting some new memories, not much property destruction. Rukia killed the Hollow. The smoke monster got away."

"Get in," Ozui commanded. "I want everyone in a gigai outta here, stat. These guys will handle clean-up."

Renji helped Rukia into the backseat of Ozui's beater, and the field team leader hit the gas.

"Do you actually know how to drive?" Renji asked hesitantly.

"I'm a great driver," Ozui assured them, bouncing over the curb. "Give me the whole story."

"First things first, you got a healer on call? Rukia's hurt."

Ozui frowned, and looked in the rear-view mirror. "Gigai's holding it together okay?" he asked.

"Yeah," Rukia mumbled.

"All my people are deployed. I can send someone over tomorrow morning."

"What if she was dying?"

"She isn't."

"What did you expect to happen?"

"Honestly, we expected that you guys would either trounce it, or it would kill you. Can't _you _heal her? Not a kaido guy myself.

Renji grimaced.

"So, details. What the hell happened?"

Renji summarized, with Rukia filling in the parts he had missed. Her brain still felt a little fuzzy. Ozui kept pressing for more information as the car trundled down the dirt road to their house.

"Look, man, she's really tired and in a lot of pain, so maybe you can interrogate her tomorrow after you send a frigging healer over, okay?"

Ozui scowled. "Fine. I'll be back tomorrow for a debrief. You guys…" he wagged his head from side to side, "Didn't do terrible."

"I don't know how we're gonna kill it," Rukia sighed. "Couldn't bind it. Couldn't hit it."

"You got a whole month to figure that out," Ozui said, stopping the car. "Merry Christmas."

* * *

"Go sit down," Renji ordered once they were in the front door.

"I'm fine, Renji, you worry too much."

"Go. Sit. Down."

Rukia stumbled to the couch while he banged around the kitchen and the bathroom. As soon as she sat, she realized how utterly exhausted she was. Renji returned shortly with a pile of towels, a roll of bandages, a kettle of warm water, and a glass of milk. He had changed into a t-shirt and his own arms were wrapped elbow-to-wrist with bandages.

"So," he said, very seriously. "We're not waiting 'til tomorrow for a healer. That's bullshit."

"Okay," she nodded, her head drooping. "What're we gonna do instead?"

He pressed the milk into her hand, and took a deep breath through his nose. "First, you're going to drink this. Then... if you'll let me... I'm can try to heal it. At least a little."

She scanned his face as she sipped her milk. She'd never seen him heal anyone before. Healing wasn't easy, and there were plenty of shinigami who didn't have the knack for it. She didn't know if he had the knack or not, although based on his general kidou dyslexia, she would have guessed not. She did know that many years ago, when they were children, she had been hurt very badly once, had nearly bled to death. With no idea what he was doing, he had tried to heal her and almost killed her a second time. It had been a point of contention in their friendship for years after. She maintained that she surely would have bled out if he hadn't done what he did, what else mattered? He hadn't seen it that way. Then again, she was the one fortunate enough to have blacked out the memories of her own screams.

The one thing she did know was that he would not offer this lightly.

His eyes were dark and serious. "I've been practicing."

Rukia nodded. "Let's give it a try."

He exited his gigai first. You could do kidou in a gigai, but it was much easier in soul form. Rukia wasn't sure if seeing him in his familiar body inspired more or less confidence. "Whenever you're ready," he said.

The blinding pain returned as soon as she was out of the gigai. Renji gathered some reiatsu on his fingers, and jabbed them into the pressure point in her shoulder. Rukia gasped, but then her arm went limp and blessedly numb. Renji recited the cantrip for slowing blood flow. He flushed the wound with water, patted it dry with a towel, and then, very carefully, spread his hands and brought forth the lightest, gentlest kaidou field she had ever felt. His brow was creased and his jaw set in concentration. "I'm very slow," he said matter-of-factly. "I'm sorry."

"Slow healing is more complete," she replied, letting her head tip back. "Shorter recovery overall."

Renji worked in silence for a few minutes. "You comfy?" he asked. "I think we're gonna be here for a while."

"I'm okay, but you're gonna get tired of standing pretty quick. Let's rearrange."

He ended the kaidou, and hauled their gigais off to the bedroom while she piled pillows on either end of the couch, and then propped herself up against one side, towels supporting her hurt arm and spread around to catch the blood that was still oozing out, albeit much more slowly. Renji settled on the other end of the couch, cross-legged, facing her, and restarted the spell.

"You never told me you could do kaidou," she sighed sleepily.

"Well," he started. "Remember when I took those extra kidou lessons back at Squad 2?"

Rukia's eyes went wide. "You've only been doing this since then?"

"I was worried this would happen," he said softly. "We would get stuck somewhere, just you an' me. And if it were me that got hurt, you'd fix me up right quick. I was scared t'death that you'd get hurt real bad and all I'd be able to do was watch." He shrugged. "They taught me some non-kaidou first aid, too. That pressure point stuff is technically hakuda."

Renji closed his eyes, and tried to feel his way around the wound with his reiatsu. It was going pretty well, actually, much better than in practice. It was something about Rukia's own reiatsu, maybe. His and hers, together, maybe. Usually, when you felt someone's reiatsu, you felt them as a whole person tramping through the world. So close, like this, so focused, he could feel all the little individual frequencies of her. There was a prominent mid-tone that he was pretty sure was matched in his own, and that weird, discordant dual frequency, as well. Maybe it was because they had grown up together, come into their powers together. Or maybe it was because they were friends. Because they were close enough again to guess each other's moods and finish each other's sentences.

Rukia's eyes were closed, and she was humming a little tune, maybe a Christmas song?

"Hey, Ru?" he nudged.

"Hmm?"

"In your experience, is it easier to heal people you're close to? Like, your friends?"

She stuck her lower lip out thoughtfully. "Kiyone told me she and Isane can heal each other really quickly, because they're sisters. As for me...it's a little hard to judge, because everything was harder then, but when I first gave Ichigo my powers, it was very easy for me to heal him. I don't know if it was because his reiatsu was already mixed up with mine, or if there was still some connection between us. I don't think that's true anymore. I haven't healed him in a long time. I think Orihime has an easier time with him than with other people, but that's probably because she's rebuilt him from scratch so many times." The side of her mouth quirked up. "Or. Y'know."

Yeah. He did know.

Since coming to the Living World, Renji had been very carefully bricking up his feelings for Rukia, trying to keep them safe and contained and out of the way. He decided to try an experiment. They were going to be at this all night as it was, anyway. He took a deep breath, and let the bricks crumble.

He thought about wading in a Rukongai river at sunset, and turning to see her hair limned with the fire of the setting sun. Her yukata was hitched out of the way, showing off her coltish arms and legs, and her face was lit with delight at the flowers drifting in the current.

He thought about the fourth time he ever kissed her. It was in the filthy alley behind Gambler's Row, at 10:30 in the morning. He had decided that, instead of holding his breath and tensing his entire body, he was going to try to see what people saw in this kissing crap. He had kept his eyes open and awkwardly put his hands on her hips. When she realized he wasn't a total stiff this time, she opened her eyes and wrinkled her nose and giggled. She gave him one more quick smack on the lips and ran off, and his heart went with her.

He thought about the devilish look on her face, smug as anything, as she called out her Second Dance on a dune in Hueco Mundo, saving her friends' asses before they even knew she was there.

He thought about her hand clutching his, a rush of air, branches smacking his face and catching his hair, as they jumped out of a tree together.

"I think you're getting better at this," her exhausted voice broke through his reverie. "Is it getting easier as you go?"

"Something like that," he replied, checking over his work. It _was _going faster (although still far slower than any competent person could manage) and her flesh was knitting together very neatly. "Hey, will you do a little experiment for me?"

"Sure."

"Could you, ah…" How to phrase this? "Could you try to think about a time that you liked me?"

One of her eyes opened. "That's most of the time."

"No, I mean, like… a time I did something nice for you? A time you… I don't know. Never mind."

"I can come up with something."

Rukia closed her eyes again. What fresh nonsense was this? Oh well, she was proud of him for trying to improve his kidou, even if it was in his weird, roundabout way. The least she could do was humor him, and focusing on pleasant memories seemed like a fine way to pass the time in any case. Let's see, a time she'd gotten the warm fuzzies for him...Hmm. Everything that came to mind was so small, so insignificant. Maybe that was okay.

The time, back at the Academy, when she had gotten sick, and he had cut class (maybe the only time he ever cut class) and snuck into the girls' dorm just to sit with her. He brought her glasses of water and read to her out of the boring novel he was into at the time. He scrammed before her roommate, who hated him, could rat him out.

The way he would come by the 13th to meet up for lunch, and if she were running late (which was often), he never minded the delay, he would just shoot the breeze with her captain or the Third Seats, like he belonged there, like they were all old friends.

The time they were all waiting and waiting while Unohana examined Ichigo, right after he lost his powers and passed out. Orihime was about a hair's breadth away from losing it, and Renji got her to teach him that dumb game where you looped a string around your hands and wrists and passed it back and forth, and he was _so bad at it_, and Orihime had laughed while tears streamed down her face.

"Is it helping?" she asked.

"Yeah. I think it is."

It was also making her feel safe and cozy. Sometimes, healing could be somewhat uncomfortable, especially among the more efficient Squad 4 members. It was someone else sticking their reiatsu into your own, forcing your body to heal itself faster than it wanted to. That was part of what made it so nice when Orihime healed you- the way she did it, you just felt like you were enveloped in a big Orihime-hug, like Orihime loved you and wanted you to get better. This… this was weirdly like that.

"You can go to sleep if you want," he said, his face creased with concentration, but his voice unexpectedly tender.

"I think I will," she replied, smiling at him. "Merry Christmas, Renji."

He snorted. "Yeah. Merry Christmas, Rukia."

* * *

Bright sun streamed into the bedroom when Rukia woke up. The sun was high in the sky, it must have been late morning. Her arm had the vague ache of over-exercise that sometimes accompanied being healed, but the throbbing pain was gone. The was a bandage loosely wrapped around it.

Rukia sat up. She remembered falling asleep on the couch; Renji must have carried her in here. She was still wearing her shihakusho from the previous night. He'd cut the one sleeve off, but she still felt pretty crusty and disgusting.

The shoji between the two bedrooms was open. Renji's futon was a few feet away from her own. He stirred, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. There was something… strange about him. She squinted. It was like seeing someone with a new haircut or pair of glasses. There was something _off _about him that she couldn't put her finger on. They usually slept in the gigais, so maybe she just wasn't used to feeling his reiatsu first thing in the morning? No, that wasn't it, but now she knew what was.

"What's wrong with your reiatsu?" she demanded.

"Huh?" he grunted.

"You... feel different. Not like you. What've you done?"

He sat up, resting his forearms on his knees, and smacking his lips a few times. "Oh. Uh. I think I may have, um, aligned us. Synchronized our reiatsu. You feel weird, too."

She regarded him skeptically. "You couldn't have. That's not a thing."

He shrugged. "This is why no one should let me do kidou."

She flexed her own reiatsu briefly, trying to figure out if the weirdness in his felt at all like her own. His flared in response, not as strongly, like an echo. He shook his head. "I didn't do that on purpose."

"Renji," she yelped. "What have you done?"

"Relax," he waved his hand at her. "I'm pretty sure it's very fragile. I'm not even sure it'll survive us getting back in the gigais. I can probably break it right now if you want. You gettin' real pissed at me might do the trick, if you prefer."

Rukia's shoulders slumped. "Let's, um, see how long it lasts."

"We do need to get some food in you," Renji pointed out. "You'll have to get in the gigai for that. How's the arm feel?"

"Feels great, actually." She unwrapped the bandage, and marveled at the expanse of healthy skin. Three smooth white scars slashed diagonally across her bicep. Rukia laughed.

"What's so funny?" Renji asked.

She held out her arm for his examination. "We match now."

He looked at it blankly for a minute, and then got it. Chuckling, he pushed up the sleeve of his shitagi. Sure enough, the scars made almost the same angle across her arm as his tattoos. "Your brother's gonna love this. I can hear him now."

Rukia laughed, a little manically, then sighed. "How much sleep did you get?"

He grabbed his phone to check the time. "Two or three hours."

"Ugh," she said, standing up and stretching. "Go back to sleep. I'm gonna get cleaned up."

"I don't want to be asleep when Ozui shows up," he complained, stretching his shoulders. "I'm sure he'll be here any minute."

* * *

Ozui's beater threw up clouds of dust as it spun into their driveway around 4pm.

Rukia was curled up under a blanket on the couch, watching an American Christmas movie on television. Renji was washing dishes. "Ozui's here," she called.

"Can you let him in? I got my hands full."

"I need to find out if she marries the hot rich guy from the subway or his sweet, shlubby brother!"

Renji sighed, dried his hands, and went to get the door. "I thought you were coming in the morning."

"Merry Christmas," Ozui announced gruffly, storming into the house, followed by Mori and a tall, stern-faced shinigami they hadn't met before. Ozui was carrying a cardboard bucket under one arm, which he dumped on the kitchen table, and flopped down. "Brought you some chicken."

"It's the traditional Christmas meal," Mori informed them.

"The Living World is super weird," Ozui noted, "but some of their food is good. So. Turns out you two did okay last night."

"Yeah?" Rukia asked, turning off the tv.

"Glad to see you didn't succumb to your wounds, Kuchiki. I knew Abarai was a worrywart. This here's Tanaka, she's the healer you were cryin' for."

"Oh," Rukia frowned. "Actually…"

"You should have her look you over," Renji suggested, gently tapping her out of her gigai, as he made his way over to the table. "I don't trust my own work."

"Is my reiatsu back to normal?" she hissed.

"Yeah, it's fine, now," he whispered back.

"Renji healed me up," she explained, presenting her arm for inspection.

Tanaka squinted at it and cast a brief scrying kidou to examine the interior. "This is a fine job. Why'd you pull me all the way in from Soul Society for this?"

"That took me six hours," Renji informed her. "If you'd showed up a little earlier, I'da been happy to let you take over."

"I'll have someone lined up next time," Ozui promised unconvincingly. He slapped a folder on the table and slid it over to Renji, who opened it up. Rukia sat down next to him. There was a photocopied report inside, a good two-thirds of the text blacked out. "Our research team back in Soul Society has suspected for some time that the smoke monster was related to a certain artifact that allows its owner to project themselves into another world. In other words, there's someone sitting pretty in Soul Society, but acting as the smoke monster here in the Living World. Apparently, Kuchiki kept the thing engaged long enough that they were able to confirm the energy signature. So, we know for sure what we're looking for, now."

Renji frowned. "But it's in Soul Society."

"The artifact, yes. And ultimately, our goal is capturing it and the person that possesses it."

"So what do we need to do here?"

"Coupla things. One, until it's caught, we still need you two here, protecting the humans. Two, it's a lot easier to track the artifact when it's active. You two need to come up with a plan to keep that smoke monster engaged for as long as possible so they can pinpoint its location."

Renji scratched the side of his face. "But _why?_ What does the person behind this stand to gain?"

"A good question," Ozui replied with a raised eyebrow.

"I think," Rukia said slowly, "It absorbed energy from the Hollow when it died."

All eyes swiveled to her.

"At the park, the site of last month's attack, there was no Hollow residue. I think the smoke monster killed it. I think it would have killed this one too, after it finished eating the human soul."

Mori was writing in her notebook, frantically.

"So, it knocks a soul out of its body to attract a Hollow, then kills the Hollow once it's fed?" Ozui summarized.

"That doesn't seem quite right," Renji frowned. "Or maybe there's some piece we're missing. That wasn't just some wandering Hollow. It came up out of the sea just then, they all have. With the high tide. Does the smoke monster lure them out? Or does it know they're coming and lays a trap for them?"

Ozui glanced at Mori, who was still taking notes. "More good questions. We'll look into it and keep you updated."

"We can help," Rukia offered.

"There is one thing," Ozui replied.

Renji's eyebrows shot up and Renji leaned forward. Finally, Ozui wanted something from them.

"In your last report, you mentioned something about an _itako_, the lady who bound your neighbor's ghost?"

"Sure," Rukia replied.

Ozui nodded to Mori, who pulled out a second folder. She opened it up and slid it across the table to them. It contained a black-and-white photograph of an older woman a stern expression and milky white eyes. "Her name was Nagato Mio," Mori explained. She practiced as an _itako_, a spiritual medium, in Kurage Bay from shortly after World War II until her death seven years ago."

"That's illegal, ain't it?" Renji frowned.

"It's illegal on _our _side," Mori clarified. "The legality of it has varied in the Living World. To be honest, most of them are fakes. They go through their training and their ascetic initiation ceremonies, and they gather their props. Humans pay them money to talk to their dead relatives, and they put on a show and everyone goes home happy. But if, during the initiation, a soul from our side responds, the binding is real, and the two create a conduit between our worlds. This is, as you noted, a criminal offense punishable by death."

There were a few more pages in the folder, human public records, address and the like.

"We've been able to find out a few basics about her, but if you two could ask around. Find some humans who knew her."

Rukia squinted. "What… exactly do you want us to find out? You said she's dead. You told us last week that the shipwreck was too old to be relevant, and she died a year before that, even."

"We don't know what's going to turn out to be relevant or not," Ozui sniffed. "Just find out whatever you can."

Rukia rolled her eyes. "Fine. We'll see what we can dig up."

"Just so you know," Renji pointed out, "Mrs. Kuwashima is real cagey about her witch friends, so I ain't gonna press her hard on this. Gotta play it slow."

"Whatever you say, Abarai," Ozui sighed. "Just keep us updated. "Speaking of which, I'm ready for a more detailed debrief from last night. You ready, Mori?"

Mori twirled her pen in her fingers. "Yes, sir."

So much for a peaceful Christmas afternoon.

* * *

Rukia was passively-aggressively eating her third piece of cake when the Onmitsukidou left later that evening. "You shouldn't have given them any cake," she informed Renji.

"There's no way we could have eaten that whole cake by ourselves."

"I could have."

"So...the cake was a success?"

She gestured to her cake and then to herself.

"The fact that you have eaten a bunch of it is meaningless. I have seen you eat piles of stuff that could only be classified as edible in the loosest sense of the word."

"This cake is the only thing I want you to make from now on."

"I'm still not sure that's a compliment, but I'll take it."

"I can't believe you made this on three hours of sleep and then you put up with four hours of Ozui. I'm getting really sick of that guy."

Renji frowned. "I guess we have at least another month of this, huh? You aren't too upset, are you? I know you want to get back."

Rukia matched his frown. To be honest, she hadn't really considered that part of it. "It probably hasn't been long enough for them to have forgiven us. It's… it's not so bad here. I'm getting used to it." She smiled wryly. "You finally got to meet my ridiculous boss and we haven't even had a chance to make fun of her."

"I do want to talk about that party," Renji mused. "It gave me some ideas. But maybe tomorrow okay?"

"You want to hit the hay?"

"Oh! Actually, I wanted to do presents."

Rukia made a face. "I didn't do a good job."

"I don't care. Gimme."

Rukia reluctantly abandoned her cake to go retrieve the present she had gotten for him. When she returned, there was a small, flat box, neatly wrapped in paper printed with silvery snowflakes sitting next to her plate. She glowered, and handed him a rectangular box, wrapped primarily in Scotch tape.

Renji's appraised the size of the box. He gave it a gentle rattle. His face split into a grin. "Is it sunglasses?"

Rukia sighed deeply. "Of course, it's sunglasses. They're not very fancy or anything. I'm not very good at gifts."

He was trying to find some entry point to all the tape. "How is this not a good gift? I _love _sunglasses. Just because I am a man of simple tastes does not make you a bad gift giver." He gave up and went to get the scissors. "You are a bad wrapper though. I'll grant you that."

"I only got them for you because I hate those mirrored biker goggles you've been wearing."

"Sunglasses that you like! See, that's not even something I could buy for myself. The best gift." He finally pried the box open. "Clubmasters! You bought me clubmasters?"

"Your real face is too long for clubmasters," she sniffed, pretending to be interested in her cake. "Since your gigai has a squarer jaw, I thought maybe you would like something you can't wear normally."

"The true gift," he announced, "is that I have tricked you into learning about kinds of sunglasses. How do I look?"

She looked up from her cake. The sunglasses were fine. His goofy, delighted grin was _adorable. _"You look cool," she assured him.

"Open yours," he demanded. It appeared that he intended to keep wearing the sunglasses.

Rukia crammed the last, overlarge bite of cake into her mouth, and pushed her plate aside. She picked up her gift, examined the neat creases and minimal use of tape, and then made intense eye contact with him and proceeded to tear the paper off in large chunks.

"It's your gift, I really don't care how you open it," he chuckled.

"You cannot imagine the horrified looks I would get from the Kuchiki elders if I opened a gift like this."

"Please. Go to town."

She pulled the lid off the box and chucked it over her shoulder. "Oh," she said. It was a scarf, the gauzy kind, not the winter kind, soft and pale silver-white, flecked with tiny, silver stars.

"A thing I like about the Living World," Renji pointed out, "is that you can buy a scarf that looks reasonably nice and does not cost a small mansion."

Rukia pulled it out of the box and wrapped it around her neck. It was very soft. "Brother's scarf," she informed him, "Costs as much as _ten _mansions. Large mansions."

Renji propped his sunnies up on his forehead so he could get a better look at her. "You look cuter in yours."

"I love it," she said very sincerely. "Thank you."

Renji felt frozen, caught in her gaze. It occurred to him, very suddenly, that he had not been careful over the last twenty-four hours, and he now found himself in a very dangerous situation.

Rukia played with the edge of her scarf, as she appreciated, once again, that Renji's gigai had very nice eyes. "Was this from Renji to Rukia or from Takeru to Tomoe?"

Renji's brain fumbled for the correct answer. Was there a correct answer? Was this a trap? "Well...yours was from Tomoe to Takeru, right? Takeru's the clubmaster guy. We don't even have Christmas in Soul Society. So Takeru to Tomoe." He raised his eyebrows hopefully.

"Mmm," Rukia replied. She reached up and put her arms around his neck.

"What's happening?" Renji squeaked.

"I did mention that Christmas is a romantic holiday, no?"

"Oh. I forgot."

"No, you didn't." She leaned forward.

Renji's brain was really not firing on all cylinders. He had gotten very little sleep after a long night of high emotions. He very much wanted Rukia to kiss him. He very much wanted to kiss her. And he knew that if he did, it would ruin absolutely everything. He wouldn't be able to hold back. He would kiss her with his whole heart, and then she would know. So instead, he turned his head, and her lips brushed against his cheek.

Rukia sat back, surprised.

Renji leaned forward, put his hand under her chin to hold her face still, and pressed a kiss into her forehead. "I'm sorry, Ru," he said softly. "I ain't got any pretending in me tonight. I need to get some sleep. I had a good first Christmas. Let's do this again next year."

"Okay," she said in a tiny voice. He couldn't meet her eyes. "I'll hold you to that."

He waved without looking back as he shuffled off to his bedroom. "Please do."

~ end part 7


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

* * *

After a night of tossing and turning and berating herself for her _stupid idiocy_, Rukia had woken at an absolutely unholy hour, with her brain ready to go a second round. In an attempt to escape it, she decided to focus on what was really important, which was the mission.

Yesterday, what they really should have done, while the trail was fresher, was to try to figure out where the Hollow had come up out of the sea. Maybe it would give them a clue as to how they were being summoned, or a guess at where next month's monster would make its appearance.

So, she'd gotten dressed in the dark, and slipped out of the house to trudge up the beach in the frosty pre-dawn.

Hollows tended to take all traces of their spiritual energy with them once they were purified, but the physical damage they caused stuck around. Unfortunately, walking up a silent beach searching for demolished trees or massive claw marks in the ground left her brain with plenty of extra cycles to devote to self-recrimination.

She wondered if he knew.

Rukia thought she was pretty good at keeping her feelings to herself. She had realized this was necessary as soon as they arrived in the Seireitei, so formal and rule-bound, compared to the freedom of Inuzuri. There were always eyes watching you, judging you, ready to cast you back where you came from. By now, she had forty years of practice hiding away her loneliness and bouts of melancholy from the Kuchikis. She had idolized both Kaien and Miyako, and always striven to keep from coming across as too eager, too ardent in her esteem of them. Even among Ichigo and his friends, all of whom she loved with her entire being, she managed to keep up a front of casual coolness.

But when she was around Renji, it was too damnably easy to let her guard down. To fall into old patterns. To let too much of herself show.

And she didn't want him to know.

_You should tell him how you feel_.

Stupid Chad. Chad, of all people, was the only one who knew. It was _obvious_, he had said. _You're into him, Kuchiki. _

Rukia grimaced. If Chad were here, she would say to him, "Look here, Chad. He's not interested in me. I made a big fool of myself and now I feel like _crap_. So _thanks. _"

And then Chad would say, "I didn't tell you to try to kiss him, Kuchiki, I told you to tell him how you feel."

Having a crush on Renji was _stupid_. He had worked so hard to get into her brother's division. Renji loved the Sixth. He was so proud to be Byakuya's trusted second, prouder than he'd ever been of anything. How could she, his alleged best friend, expect him to put that at risk for… for _romance_?

_You feel how you feel. _

That wasn't Chad. That was Renji. He'd said that to her when she admitted to him that she had briefly but seriously considered throwing her entire life in the garbage for an idiot human teenager.

Cripes, what was she going to _say _to him? Maybe she could pretend it never happened. They had done that all the time back in Rukongai, especially as they got on in age. Something would happen, something they couldn't process, and they would never speak of it again, even as it festered between them. The time he smashed up his arm protecting her after she was stupid enough to try to pickpocket someone who carried around a length of iron pipe as a weapon. That when there were just three of them left, Fujimaru had fallen away from them, fallen in with a nasty crowd, and they had been too wrapped up in themselves to do anything about it, until there was one more grave and just two of them left. Even at the Academy, as he forged ahead and she fell behind, she could never find the words to tell him that she missed him, that she still needed him. Instead, she had just left, and not talked to him again for forty years.

She could _just imagine _the look Chad would give her for that one.

And that's when she noticed the big ruts in the sandy ground and the mess of disturbed brush at the edge of the woods. Rukia was mildly surprised. She hadn't actually expected to find anything, and certainly not so close to home. This spot seemed weirdly familiar, actually, and as she drew closer, she realized why.

"Arrrrgggh," Rukia groaned.

Of all the places a stupid Hollow could have appeared, this one had to walk right through their fire pit.

It was a mess. The stones lining the pit had been knocked about, and ash and half-burnt wood was scattered everywhere. One chair lay on its side. She found the other a bit into the woods, with a large hole in it. She realized, with a bitter laugh, that the Hollow had probably gotten it stuck on its big, claw-covered foot, and had some trouble shaking it off.

Her phone buzzed. Sighing, she checked the text, which simply said "Everything okay?"

Feeling tears prick at her eyes, she squeezed them shut until she had ahold of herself again.

Then, she wrote back. "Yeah. Headed back now."

* * *

"I have good news and bad news," Rukia announced grandiosely, stepping into the house.

"Did you eat before you left?" Renji demanded. It didn't look like he had slept particularly well, either.

"No," she admitted. "I found the place where the Hollow came through the woods. Lots of claw marks on trees and stuff like that."

"Come to the kitchen and talk to me while I make your breakfast. It'll only take a minute. You just had a major healing and I know you _think _you feel better, but you should not be skipping meals."

Sighing, she followed him. "It walked right through your firepit, though."

Renji laughed, a terse bark. "Figures." He had spooned some hot rice into bowls and started cracking eggs over top.

"I'm sorry about that, I know you spent a bunch of time cleaning it up." She watched the way his forearms flexed under his bandages as he whisked the egg into the rice.

"I'll just clean it up again. Probably not this week, though. Got all the New Year's cooking and cleaning to do, and I gotta go talk to that tattoo guy." He shook some soy sauce and furikake into the bowl and shoved it at her. "Something new. Egg rice. Go ahead and ruin it with hot sauce if you want."

Rukia looked down at it. The egg had gotten fluffy and foamy, cooked by the hot rice.

"I left a note," she blurted out defensively.

"Yeah, it said 'Out'. Very informative." He walked past her, taking his food out to the table.

"I don't have to tell you what I do."

His shoulders stiffened. "Did I say something?"

She huffed. "You seemed mad at me."

"Well, I'm not, so don't worry about it."

They ate silently for a few minutes

"I need to do more hakuda practice in this dumb gigai," Renji finally broke the silence. Talking shop was always a good way to ease past a disagreement. "I knew I wasn't up to my usual standards, but I thought maybe I could get by."

Rukia shook a little more hot sauce onto her egg. "Hakuda's really for fighting other people, anyway. It's awful hard to kill a Hollow with it, unless you're Yoruichi."

"I think I could take out a low-level Hollow. That wasn't a low-level Hollow."

"Yeah," she echoed. "I wonder where Yoruichi is, anyway. She said she would contact us."

"Maybe everything's going great, and she hasn't needed to."

"Pshaw. Sure." Rukia chewed for a moment. "I really like this egg stuff."

He glanced up at her. "Great. It's easy to make."

She should say something.

She should apologize.

She should explain. It wouldn't even need to be the truth. Just a story to make everything make sense, so they could move on.

"Renji… can I ask you something?"

He put his coffee mug down carefully. "Uh, yeah, of course. Since when do you need to ask?"

She should change the subject.

"How did you get Zabimaru to manifest?"

Renji blinked. That was obviously not what he had been expecting. He was a huge nerd when it came to zanpakutou, though, he couldn't help getting sucked into a conversation about them. "You gonna start working for…?"

Rukia fidgeted. "No. There's something I need to ask her. But she'll only take human form in my inner world when she feels like it, which is like, twice, ever. I thought maybe the principle might be the same. Making your zanpakutou do something it doesn't want to."

"Well, I can tell you want I did, but just to warn you, it wasn't quick." Renji stared into his coffee thoughtfully. "So, I know this guy whose zanpakutou spirit is a lot like Zabimaru, and he told me-"

"Was it Ikkaku?"

Renji choked. "No, it was someone else."

"Don't lie to me. I do pay attention to all your boring Squad 11 stories, you know, and you're always talking about how useful it is to train with him because Hozukimaru is just like Zabimaru."

"It's really a very common personality for a zanpakutou, especially among melee-type-"

Rukia's brow creased. "Does Ikkaku have bankai? It would be just like him to have it and not tell anyone so he doesn't get promoted out of Squad 11."

"Dammit, Rukia! _Fine_. _Yes. _It _was _Ikkaku, and he _does _have bankai, and if he finds out I told you, we _are _going to have to go on the lam. Happy?"

She shrugged, flashing him a smug little smile.

"So, almost as soon as I started training with him, he told me I needed to start wrestling with Zabimaru._ " _

"Wrestling?"

"Yes, physically wrestling. Grappling."

"Aren't they huge?"

"They've gotten a lot bigger as I've gotten stronger. Not that it was ever easy or anything. The snake part bites. Anyway, they loved it, just like Ikkaku said they would, and about a quarter of the time I go into my inner world, they skip straight to giving me the business. It would go back and forth. I would come up with some new hold, and they would come up with some new way of reversing it. So, after a few years, when I thought I could do it, as we're wrestling, just as I'm getting the pin, I start trying to leave my inner world and they came, too. And we never discussed it or anything, but that became part of the game- they gotta pin me in the inner world to win, I gotta pull them into the outer world to do it. Eventually, I could just pull them out without the wrestling part, but that's how I learned." He made a face. "Not a word of that was applicable to you, was it?"

"It's something to think about. Sode no Shirayuki told me once that she and Zabimaru were complementary. I just need to figure out the principle of the thing and reverse it."

"I don't know what she was on about, Zabimaru's never given me a compliment in my life."

"Complement, with an 'e'. Like, two parts that go together to make a whole. Two sides of the same coin."

Renji was regarding her strangely. "That's...weird. When'd she tell you that?" How come you didn't tell me? he left unsaid.

"It was when I was training with Orihime and you were in the Living World," Rukia replied quietly. She didn't elaborate. "Anyway, I wanted to ask her about the smoke monster."

"Oh!"

"I mean, I'm honestly stumped as to how to fight the thing. I might try enclosing it in some barrier spells, but that's the only idea I have. She felt it too, I thought… I dunno. Maybe I'm grasping at straws."

"No, that's a great idea," Renji replied. "You know what else is good for thinking?"

She sighed. She knew what was coming. She should have known she wasn't going to be able to get out of helping with the end-of-year cleaning. "Scrubbing floors?"

"Scrubbing floors!"

It was fine. It was good. Renji on his cleaning bullshit was not as bad as Renji on his fitness bullshit, but he would certainly get hopped up enough to forget her blunder of the night before and this morning's awkwardness. And if they could get past that, she would gladly scrub every floor in the place.

* * *

When Rukia arrived at work Monday morning, there was a large map of the fishery pinned to one wall, covered in sticky notes. Sunadori squinted at it, her eyes alight with far too much caffeine.

"Good morning, Ms. Sunadori," Rukia greeted gingerly.

"SATONAKA! You're finally here!" Sunadori bellowed.

Rukia glanced at the time as she hung up her coat. "This is when I usually get in."

"This is a big week, Satonaka!" Sunadori continued at louder volume than normal. "I got in two hours ago!"

"You are very loud this morning, ma'am."

"I have had a lot of coffee! Haven't you? You're vibrating."

"Actually, ma'am, I think _you're _vibrating. Have you had anything to eat?"

"No time, Satonaka!"

"Oh, you need to eat, ma'am. Wait here, I'll be right back."

Ten minutes later, Rukia returned with a cardboard box. Sunadori was writing a rather involved to-do list on the map.

"I got us donuts," Rukia announced.

Sunadori eyed her skeptically. "Where, exactly did you get those?"

"Those jerks down in Marketing always have donuts. Don't worry, they didn't catch me."

Sunadori frowned, but grabbed a cruller and bit into it. "You stole the entire box."

"You said it was a big day."

"You have management potential," Sunadori announced, shooting a finger gun at her. "So, here's the deal."

Rukia fished around for a chocolate glazed and took a big bite. It had that certain _je ne sais quoi _of pilfered baked goods.

"This week is _New Year's Cleaning_. We will, of course, need to organize and supervise the cleaning of the entire plant," she slapped the map with the back of her hand. "Hence the map. Additionally, this office will be your personal responsibility."

"Yes, ma'am!" Rukia nodded. Great. Two crazy-eyed cleaning maniacs, one at home and one at work. Perfect.

"In addition to general cleaning, you'll need to sort out all the year-end files, and haul them off to the storage room. _And _we'll need to fit in all the usual weekly paperwork. My plan is to get that out of the way today, assuming we can get all the inputs, which means _extra bullying, _so I'm counting on you. Finally, we will need to plan, coordinate, and hold the company potluck, which is on Friday. You think you can handle it all?"

Rukia's mouth was stuffed with donut, but she nodded enthusiastically. She had no idea what a "potluck" was.

"Great!" Sunadori glanced at the time on her phone. "I have allotted 10 minutes for post-Christmas socializing." She stared at Rukia meaningfully.

"Oh!" Rukia blinked, having finally swallowed her donut. "We had a nice time at your party. Thank you for having us. I'm sorry we had to leave early. I hope the rest went well?"

Sunadori rolled her eyes. "I finally got everyone kicked out around 2am. I appreciate you coming. Your husband was oddly popular."

Rukia shrugged. "Yeah. That's how he is. You get used to it."

"Now, to the important part. What did he get you? What did you get him?"

"Oh, he got me this scarf!" Rukia was wearing it. She fiddled on her phone for a moment. "I got him new sunglasses. He really likes sunglasses. Here he is." She turned her phone around to display a picture of Renji cheesing for the camera in his new sunnies.

Sunadori frowned and shook her head. "You two are disgustingly cute. Continue to take pictures of him, it brings life to my cold, dusty heart."

"Okay," Rukia agreed. Her ears felt warm. At least they were doing a good job being undercover, right? Even if their actual relationship was turning into a dumpster fire?

"Okay," Sunadori agreed. "Social time is over! Let's go, let's go, let's go!"

* * *

Rukia frowned at the large set of keys Sunadori had entrusted her with. The orange one was supposed to be the storage room. The storage room was actually a floor down from her office, and she had several boxes of records to haul down here, which meant she got to use a cart _and _the freight elevator.

The cart reminded her very much of the AV cart at Karakura High.

The AV cart that was very fun to ride on with someone else pushing you.

Ishida hated it when anyone rode on the AV cart, because of his Deep Concern for School Property.

Unfortunately, today, Rukia didn't have anyone to push her on the cart, even though the downstairs hallway seemed about perfect for it. She unlocked the storage room door, and went in.

It was dark and cool inside, and much, much larger than she had expected. She hauled the cart just inside the door, but left it there. She walked up and down the aisles of floor-to-ceiling wire shelving, trying to figure out where her boxes were supposed to go. There was surely some sort of order to these, but she was damned if she could figure out what it was.

Most of the boxes had neat, descriptive labels written on the ends. She slowed when she passed an entire section of boxes that, instead, had "Oga" scrawled in thick black marker on them. Interesting.

Rukia pulled one of the boxes of the shelf, and peaked inside. It was full of books. She sifted through them. It was a mishmash of topics- boats, fishing, history of the area. The most interesting one was titled "Yokai of the Wind and Waves", but it seemed to be just a book of fairy tales, not a book of summoning or anything like that. Overall, it looked more like someone's personal book collection than work materials. She checked a few other boxes. More books, which she didn't bother to look through. Personal stuff- coffee mugs, some sweatshirts, desk stuff. Someone must have just packed up his office after he died and thrown everything down here in the storage room. She pulled out a framed picture- to her surprise, it showed two middle-aged men standing with two school children, a boy and a girl. Everyone was grinning. The children held up fish they had obviously just caught. The girl's fish was much bigger than the boy's. It was Sunadori. The girl was Sunadori. And if she wasn't mistaken, the boy was Oga Haruta, whom she had met at the Christmas party.

Well, there was nothing particularly strange about that. Sunadori had said they were friends in their youth, and their dads, obviously the older men in the picture, had run the business together for a long time. They must have been friends at some point, too. Rukia smiled fondly at her polished and elegant boss, sunburnt and cheerful, her arm casually thrown around her friend. They looked to be about the size Rukia had been when she and Renji first started running together.

The next box she checked was packed with green-covered log books, each filled with page after page of handwritten notes about daily fishing trips. It alternated between morning plans and evening results. The morning entries were filled with weather predictions, tides, plans for the day's catch, crew. The evening ones logged yields, observations, any maintenance required by the boat. The spines of the logs were noted with the dates each one spanned. Rukia dug through until she found the final one. She flipped to the last entry, the day of the shipwreck. There was a morning entry, but it looked a little different than the others. The crew's name were written out in full, instead of surname and initial. There was no weather prediction. There were no notes about fish. Instead of the usual terse sentence fragments, Captain Oga had written "Today, like so many before it, should be an excellent day to be out on the sea."

Rukia frowned. It could be nothing. She'd only looked at a few of his entries. Perhaps he got whimsical from time to time. It was said that some humans received premonitions of their own deaths. It was surely only in hindsight that it seemed like something written by someone who knew they were able to go down with their ship.

* * *

The bell over the door tinkled cheerfully when Rukia entered the shop. It was actually very cheerful and pleasant, with a lots of indoor plants, and colorful artwork. A cute girl with two full sleeves and a lot of piercings sat behind the front desk. "Can I help you?" she asked.

"I'm, uh, just here to meet my husband," Rukia excused, sitting down gingerly in the waiting area.

The girl's face lit up. "The guy with the snake skull?"

Rukia smiled tiredly. "That's him."

The girl raised her eyebrows, which practically jingled. "I saw the design for the other arm, too. It is gonna look _cool as hell_."

Rukia blushed a little. It always felt a little weird when people complimented Renji to her. Maybe she had never gotten over those early years in Rukongai when he was such a dork and she was the only one who knew how great he was.

"I can't believe this is his first tattoo," she went on. "He's been super chill the whole time."

"He has the soul of a tattoo guy, I guess," Rukia shrugged.

"Hey, Steve, how you doing? Snake guy's wife is here!"

"'Nother twenty minutes, prob'ly!" another voice called back. "She can come on back if she wants to watch!"

Rukia shook her head frantically. "I don't want to be a distraction."

"Feel free to just hang out, then."

Rukia swung her foot idly for a minute or two, then picked up one of the binders sitting on the low table nearby, and flipped through it. The art was really impressive, actually. In Soul Society, tattoos tended to be fairly simplistic, but bold. Blocks of color, clan symbols. In the Living World, it was like having a work of art on your body. She paused her flipping. On the left side of the page was a design for large, intricate snowflake on someone's lower leg. On the right side, was a shoulder tattoo, a delicate spray of stars down the shoulder blade. Rukia looked back and forth between the two.

"That's my portfolio, you know," the desk girl said casually. "My name's Mai, by the way."

Rukia raised her eyebrows. "I didn't realize you were an artist. You're very good!"

"Which one of those are you admiring?"

Rukia blushed again. Why did she feel so self-conscious in this place? "Both, actually. I mean, if it were me, I would get this one," she tapped on the stars, "but with snowflakes." She chewed her lip. "I like snowflakes," she blurted out awkwardly.

Mai didn't seemed phased. "The snowflakes would have to be a lot simpler than that big one," she explained. "That would be super cute, though. I could work that up real easily."

"Hey," Renji's voice interrupted. Rukia's eyes snapped up. "What do you think?" He flexed his bicep.

Rukia gasped. The stylized snake skull looked just like Hihiou Zabimaru in profile, caught mid-snarl, ready to strike. "Oh, Takeru, it looks great! Are you happy with it?"

"We'll see how it looks in a few days, but I think it came out pretty good."

Rukia knew that some zanpakutou spoke directly in their shinigami's heads. Renji said that Zabimaru did this from time to time. Sode no Shirayuki did not do this. Nevertheless, a very Sode no Shirayuki feeling came over her. A feeling of _wanting_. Rukia's eyes widened.

Renji's eyes drifted down to the book on her lap, and then back up to her face. A huge grin spread onto his face. Just enormous.

"When are you coming back for your other one?" Rukia asked. She had meant to sound very serious, but she realized that she was smiling, too.

Renji looked over his shoulder at Mai, eyebrows raised. "January 8th, was it, Mai? A Saturday?"

"Mm-hmm," she confirmed smugly.

"Do you, uh, have any openings for that day?" Rukia asked hopefully.

* * *

"So, did you actually get Lucky Steve to tell you anything?" Rukia asked when they were back at home, eating dinner.

"Boy, howdy," Renji shook his head. "I didn't even have to ask. He'd been working on me maybe five minutes, and then 'Do you like creepy stories?' and I was like, 'I'm getting a snake skull tattooed on my arm here, what do you think?' and then he starts in on 'Let me tell you about the dead guy I found in the alley!'"

"Wow," Rukia replied.

"Humans. Humans'll talk about anything, won't they?"

Rukia had yet to hear a dead body story at work, but she had heard a few wild ones, for sure. The Business Development unit on Monday mornings was a particular hotbed for tales of debauchery. "Some of them will, for sure," she agreed.

"The story wasn't too different from what you learned from that ghost in the park, but there are a few interesting details. The guy who died was homeless, apparently, and a regular fixture in the neighborhood. Steve talked to him from time to time, knew him. I guess he slept at a shelter nearby, but had some mental illness, and didn't like to be inside." Renji cocked his head. "The way humans treat their homeless is really weird, did you know that?"

"Yeah," Rukia frowned. "I'm not sure it's worse than Soul Society, though."

Renji rolled his eyes. "It would be hard to do worse than Soul Society on that score. Anyway, so Steve said he was coming in for work that evening, and he sees this fairly well-dressed young man step out of the alley, which he thought was strange. He says he probably would have just kept walking, but he got a real scary feeling, like someone screaming, except he was sure he couldn't actually hear anything. And this is where I started liking Steve, because this is where he runs _into _the alley, instead of running away."

"Fellow heroic idiot," Rukia teased.

"As if you weren't our club president," Renji rejoined. "But here's the interesting thing- he said the alley was filled with smoke."

"He saw the smoke monster."

"Exactly."

"Maybe he's just one of those humans that see spirits."

Renji shook his head. "I thought about that, but I don't think so, based on the rest. He says that while he was in the alley, it was hard to see, so he used the flashlight on his phone. There was a vague shape in the smoke, human-shaped, like a place where the smoke _wasn't_. Then he felt another one of those awful screams, and the human shape fell to the ground, but there was nothing there. I think it was one of the shinigami. I think he saw-well, sort of saw, one of those poor kids get killed."

"What about the Hollow? Did he say anything about that?"

"No. There was nothing in the story about a Hollow."

"Maybe the shinigami killed it before he got there."

"Maybe," Renji mused. "Or maybe the smoke monster did."

Rukia hmmed. It certainly fit with what they had seen on Christmas Eve, but _why_? What reason would the smoke monster have for killing Hollows? "What happened next?"

"Oh, right! He said the smoke just disappeared after that, like water going down a drain. And then he noticed his homeless pal on the ground, and he called the emergency service. Steve was really hopped up about the next part. He said the guy didn't have a mark on his body, there was no obvious way he had died. Which, yeah, that's what happens when something knocks your soul out of your body and eats it. But apparently the cops classified it as alcohol-related and closed the case, which really pissed Steve off. And then he complained about cops for a while."

"Has he noticed anything weird in the neighborhood since?"

"Didn't mention it. He did say that Mai went down there and burned a bunch of sage, which they felt cleared up any bad energy, or something like that."

"You can always follow up when you go back. 'Hey, anything else strange happened lately?'"

Renji smiled at her knowingly. "Or you can."

Rukia started paying very close attention to her food.

"You really gonna do it?"

She scowled at him. "Of course I am! You think I'm a coward?"

"Hardly. Just thought you might have come to your senses. I have never once come to my senses."

"It's just the gigai," Rukia excused. "It's not like I actually have to live with it forever. And it's something you're so into… it… would be… nice...to share the experience." This was embarrassing. Maybe she should back out.

But no one was more embarrassing than Renji. He pointed to his forehead with both index fingers. "You should get your brows done."

"Never."

"It's so good. You'll love it."

"Never, never, never."

* * *

The best part about being in charge of organizing the potluck was that you got first crack at the sign-up sheet.

Rukia had brought juice.

You didn't have to do anything with juice. You went to the store and you bought it and then you brought it to the party. And people needed things to drink.

Sunadori had informed her that her decision to provide juice in the form of juice boxes was "a bold move," but Rukia wasn't exactly sure how else juice came.

She had briefly entertained the idea of asking Renii to help her make something, but decided against it. In stark comparison to the rest of the house, which was now roughly as clean as an operating room, the kitchen was a warzone. He kept making things, even though there was no more room in the fridge. Where was he putting it? The Dangai, possibly? She had no idea what army he was planning to feed, but every time she asked, he just said that you weren't supposed to cook on New Year's itself, and also, he planned on spending all of Saturday afternoon getting sauced and watching football.

Besides, the very idea of him teaching her to do anything in the kitchen made her want to barf. The sight of him in his dumb apron, with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his hair pulled back in that ridiculous little stubby ponytail. The way he explained things he was really into, talking a little too fast and much too loud, gesturing with his hands. The patient way he would demonstrate a new skill, the smug little smile when she finally got it, as if he had anything to do with it. _Gross. _No, thank you.

Juice, it was.

Plenty of other people at work were great cooks, apparently, and Rukia was stuffing her face along with the nerds from Accounting, when the room suddenly got very quiet. Everyone was turning to look at a vague familiar older gentleman standing at the front of the room, Ms. Sunadori standing just behind him. He started to make a slightly rambling speech about the fishery and hard work and how much he appreciated everyone's efforts. Rukia realized, with some shock, that this was Mr. Sunadori, the owner of the fishery and father of her boss. She had pictured a steel-eyed, merciless businessman, all perfect haircuts and expensive suits. Instead, he just seemed friendly and rambling. He had a lot less hair and a lot more tummy than the picture she had found of him in the storeroom.

"...I hope you and all of your families have a wonderful New Year!"

Everyone clapped enthusiastically.

"I'm glad he came in for the party," Kato at Rukia's right commented. "Haven't seen the old guy in ages."

"I've never even met him," Rukia noted.

"He's basically retired," Murata explained. "He loves this place and everyone who works here, though. He can't let go."

"What's he like?" Rukia asked, curiously.

"Nice," Murata answered immediately.

"Super nice," Kato agreed, and there were nods from some of the other accountants.

"So... Ms. Sunadori must take after her mom," Rukia supposed.

The accountants found that hilarious. The accountants usually found Rukia hilarious, which is why she hung out with them.

"Look, Ms. Sunadori is what she is," Kato opined, "but we all like being employed, and she's kept this place growing in a crummy economy."

There were several noises of agreement.

"Also, she's very straightforward. You do your work, you do it on time, she won't give you any trouble. Back before she took over, it was a little more relaxed, but things got lost or overlooked and then you have to scramble to fix them. It's nice to work on a tightly run ship."

As the conversation turned to everyone's New Year's plans, Rukia's mind turned to her own squad back home, which was definitely more "relaxed" and less of a "tightly run ship." When the captain was well, everything usually went fine, but when he was down, the Third Seats tended to focus on him, rather than the squad and everything went down the tubes in short order. Rukia had always sort of assumed this was inevitable, it was just life in Squad 13. She got to hear a lot of Squad 6 stories, from two quarters now. In terms of tightly run ships, the Sixth Division was a submarine. Obviously, she knew that both Brother and Renji put in a mind-boggling amount of effort to keep it that way, but somehow, she had assumed that there was also some essential Squad 6-ness to it that couldn't be replicated elsewhere.

Rukia's brain teetered on the edge of the rabbit hole of Becoming a vice-captain, when she was snapped back to the present by Sunadori's whipcrack voice.

"There you are!"

Rukia jumped to her feet. "Is everything okay? Did we run out of napkins? I was worried about the napkin count."

Sunadori smirked. "Everything's fine. I wanted you to meet Daddy. Daddy, this is Satonaka, my new right hand."

Mr. Sunadori was greeting the accountants with cheerful familiarity. "Oh, it's good to finally meet you," he said, belatedly turning his attention to Rukia. "Welcome to the Wazao Fishery family! Yui says you're a real firecracker. She's very pleased with your work."

Rukia's ears burned. "Thank you, sir!"

The elder Sunadori turned to his daughter. "Can we go find Dr. Minakata now? I want to talk to him about the new variety of feedstock for the sea bream."

"Sure, Daddy," Sunadori agreed, winking at Rukia as they departed.

"See? Super nice," Murata reiterated as Rukia sat back down.

So much for their prime suspect.

* * *

Sunadori threw herself into her office chair. "We did it, Satonaka. You were," she shot a finger gun at Rukia, "a champ."

Rukia smiled tiredly from her own chair.

The office was spotless.

The reports were run.

The potluck was over. The whole year was over.

"What do we do?" Rukia asked, her voice hushed.

"There is nothing left to do," Sunadori sighed contentedly.

"Can we… go home early?" Rukia asked hopefully.

"No, because if I we go home early, everyone will think they can go home early."

Rukia wasn't actually sure there was anything wrong with that.

Sunadori unlocked her bottom desk drawer and started fishing around. "I'll tell you what we are going to do, Satonaka." She plunked a large bottle of sake on top of her desk. "This is the one day a year we are going to drink at work."

Rukia's eyes went wide.

* * *

Sunadori had been talking about filling her brows for at least fifteen minutes when Rukia decided it was time to make her move.

Kuchiki Rukia was very small and had a child-like face. These facts were basically still true, even in her gigai. It was easy to assume that she had a low capacity for alcohol. _This _was patently false.

Frozen in the core of Kuchiki Rukia was a deep, deep well of spiritual energy. Due to the patient and subtle nature of her zanpakutou, it didn't pour out of her, as it did certain orange-haired shinigami substitutes, but it was there. Probably the only person who had the slightest inkling of this was Renji, in the sense that he had noticed that despite having less than half his mass, she consumed more daily calories than he and could consistently drink him under the table.

Nevertheless, she often found it very useful and amusing to feign drunkenness. This was one of those times. "You told me, at the Christmas party," she interrupted loudly. "That you would give me the low-down on Oga."

Sunadori was pretty sloshed, for realsies. She screwed up her eyebrows. "I did. I did say that. Oga Haruta was my first love!"

Rukia's shoulders jumped. Sunadori used the exact inflection Hirako Shinji did whenever he declared someone his first love. Rukia wondered if they were related. It would be utterly unsurprising.

"We were childhood friends," Sunadori went on. "Our fathers were terrible workaholics whose wives left them, so we spent all our time on boats or at the shore or here at the fishery. Tiny maniacs. We got shipped off to boarding school together when we were teens. We became terrible snobs and made friends with people whose parents got rich from businesses that didn't involve smelling like fish. Then we had a disagreement and stopped talking to each other."

"What kinda disagreement?" Rukia asked.

"He thought my father killed his and I thought his father killed himself and sixteen of his employees," Sunadori sniffed.

"Yikes," Rukia cringed.

"Very yikes," Sunadori agreed. "We both went off to college. I didn't speak to him for years. I don't know what happened to him, but he got really into… ghosts and spooky crap. I think he's been trying to talk to his dad's ghost. In any case, he doesn't blame my dad anymore, although he's never told me so or apologized or anything. He just moved back and started texting me like it never happened." She rested her chin in her palm. "I don't know why I keep texting him back. All of my friends tell me I shouldn't. I don't think he even has a job."

"I thought the shipwreck was an accident," Rukia replied, eyes wide.

"I mean, it was. There was a storm. But Captain Oga should have brought them back in. He was weird as hell, too, by the way. He always was super into ghosts and the occult and crap like that, I'm sure that's why Haruta got into it. Old Oga used to buy stuff that he thought was magic. Mostly books, but his house was full of all kinds of daggers an' masks' and wands and nonsense. It was creepy. He got even weirder in that last year before he died, too. He had cancer, you know, and it was terminal. I think he offed himself. He didn't have to take those other men with him, though."

"I heard!" Rukia announced, trying to cover this total non sequitur in drunken lunacy, "There used to be a creepy old lady in town who could talk to dead people!"

Sunadori's eyes got wide. "I remember her! Ms. Nagato! We were _terrified _of her as kids. Gosh, I haven't thought about her in years. I wonder if she's still around."

"Did Captain Oga hang out with her or anything?"

"Huh? I don't think so. She lived out on the edge of town, I don't think she had friends or anything. She's gotta be dead by now."

"Yeah, that's what I heard," Rukia confirmed.

"Yeah, too bad. I bet she coulda helped Haruta talk to his dad."

So much for that line of questioning. At least it was something. Maybe.

"Why did Oga blame your dad, anyway?"

Sunadori shrugged. "He didn't _blame _blame him. Daddy and Captain Oga had some disagreements about keeping the fishing fleet, and Daddy had drawn some catch targets that Oga wasn't meeting. Haruta thought his dad stayed out in bad conditions because he was trying to meet that stupid quota." Sunadori downed another saucer of sake. "Satonaka, you are not drinking."

Rukia tried to wheel her office chair over to Sunadori's desk. It took a few tries and she fell over once. Sunadori poured her a refill.

"That conversation was very _morbid_," Sunadori announced. "I did not care for it. Please regale me, Satonaka, with the charming story of how a strange, intense little person like you nabbed a tall, weird hunk."

Rukia frowned. Those descriptions of Renji and herself were not exactly _wrong_, but she wasn't sure she liked them.

"Please tell me you met as adults and had a normal, romantic, mature courtship."

"Well…" Rukia said slowly. "We met as teens." She pressed her lips together. "But we had a big falling out when he dropped out of high school to devote more time to being a delinquent. We didn't talk for almost the whole time I was in college."

Sunadori was glaring at her, eyes half-lidded. "You are kidding me, Satonaka."

"I'm really not. I'm sorry."

Sunadori sighed heavily. "Did he perform some grand romantic act to win you back?" she asked hopefully.

Rukia glanced at the clock. There was still an hour until quitting time. She'd already gotten a lot of interesting information out of Sunadori. Maybe she could do storytime.

Rukia was really quite fond of the romance manga backstory she and Renji had made up. He'd told part of it to Mrs. Kuwashima, but she hadn't gotten to pull it out yet. She had been beginning to think she wasn't going to get to at all, and been consoling herself with the possibility of telling the whole thing to Orihime when this was all over. Well, here was her big chance.

Rukia made a sad face. "No, not at all. I came home from school New Year's of my senior year, and my mom told me she'd seen his mom, and he was in the hospital. He had almost died and they weren't sure if he was gonna keep his leg or not. I hadn't even known he had joined the JGSDF.

"I mean, he had been a downright rat-bastard, but we had some good times, too, and his mom said he had cleaned himself up a lot, so I thought, maybe I'll write him a letter. The guy's in the hospital, may end up with a prosthesis, the least I can do is send him a get-well card. I sat down and wrote him a twelve page letter. I didn't know I still had twelve pages of feelings left for him. I threw it away and sent him a card from the drug store instead. I felt bad after I sent it, so I wrote him a one-page letter of the absolute blandest nothing, and sent that to him. And he wrote back."

"What did he say?" Sunadori asked breathlessly.

"It wasn't very long. Thanks for writing, mostly. That he hoped I was well." She frowned. "It broke my heart. So I wrote him a longer letter, just nice things, happy things, things that I remembered would make him smile. And he wrote back to that, too, and then we started texting and calling. His leg improved, slowly. I was still at school when they let him go home to his mom's. I took the train home that weekend, just to see him. I didn't tell him I was coming."

"Oh, how romantic! What did he say when he saw you?"

"We-ell," Rukia drawled, "you should tell people when you're visiting them, especially when they're just out of the hospital. He looked terrible and he was in a lot of pain, and I think he was a little embarrassed. But that's when I really knew that he had changed. Because through all that pain, he was so gentle and so careful with everything he said. All he cared about was that he didn't accidentally push me away again. At the end of the weekend, he made me promise that I wouldn't let him distract me from school and that I would have a strong finish."

Sunadori blew her nose loudly.

"Anyway, I finished school and took a part-time job in our hometown. Takeru couldn't get around very well and I had a car, so I offered to give him a lift when he needed one. By the second week, he was inventing places he had to go so I would drive him around. Finally, I just drove him up to the spot where we used to go in high school to make out, and said 'this is where you wanted to go, right?' Now, it turned out, that time he actually _had _a doctor's appointment, so it wasn't really as smooth as I had planned, but we got it figured out. And then we got married in September. When my aunt heard the news, she mentioned that my great-uncle Hyousuke had left her his house out here in Kurage Bay and if we wanted it, we could have it. And here we are."

"That's soooooo romantic," Sunadori slurred. Her brows suddenly furrowed, and she started counting on her fingers. "Wait, you dated him for three months and then you _got married_?"

Rukia made a noncommittal shrug. "Why waste time?"

Sunadori shook her head. "You have got some real _balls_, Satonaka. You are going to run this fishery some day."

"Oh, no, ma'am, you are definitely the queen of the fishery."

Sunadori gripped her head. "I have an MBA, you know. I could have worked for a Global 500. I could live in Tokyo."

"Why don't you?" Rukia asked.

"The fishery is important! It gives people jobs! It makes. Fish. To eat. It's important. To me. I love it. It's my favorite fishery. Daddy wants to retire, and who would run the fishery?" Sunadori narrowed her eyes. "You. You could run the fishery."

"I really couldn't. I've only been here for a month."

"Why waste time?" Sunadori echoed. "I will teach you everything I know. But we can start next week." She capped the bottle of sake. "Let's get the hell out of here, Satonaka. Happy New Year!"

"Happy New Year, ma'am!" Rukia echoed.

* * *

Rukia yawned as they walked down the path. They were on their way home from their New Year's shrine visit, and she was really looking forward to getting out of this kimono. It wasn't nearly as nice as any of hers at home, and it was making her feel grumpily homesick. They had gone into town with Renji's old lady friend, Mrs. Kuwashima, but she had abandoned them to play cards with some of her other old lady pals.

"Anything you wanna do when we get home?" Renji asked mildly.

"Not really," she replied, glumly.

She didn't even know what she was so depressed about. New Year's with the Kuchikis was just a parade of uncomfortable outfits, calligraphy practice, and criticism. The only part of it she liked was getting up for the first sunset of the New Year with Byakuya. She would roll out of bed, get dressed, and stumble outside with pillow creases on her face and her hair an absolute bird's-nest. He would be there, elegant and serene. He would say nothing. She would say nothing. The sun would rise. They would go in and eat breakfast in silence. Would this year have been different? As he stood there, in his silks and kenseikan watching the sun clear the rooftops of the Seireitei, had he even thought about her, standing on the beach in her pajamas with his equally disheveled former lieutenant, slurping over-sweet coffee out of chipped mugs?

"You could practice your calligraphy," Renji offered.

She glared at him. "I will absolutely not be practicing my calligraphy."

"Write some poems."

"No."

"Start drinking early?"

"Now you're talking."

Rukia squinted as their house came into view. "What's that on the front step?"

Renji frowned. There was a small, black shape on the front porch, vaguely circular.

As they drew closer, it stretched out, opened one golden eye, and declared "Mrew!"

They looked at each other.

"Yoruichi?"

~ end part 8


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

* * *

"Thanks," Yoruichi said, accepting a cup of tea from Renji. She was wearing one of his numerous Motley Crue t-shirts and a skirt of Rukia's that she had managed to make look substantially less modest simply by inhabiting it. She inhaled some steam, then put the mug aside to cool, and started opening a little waterproof packet of papers that she had brought with her. Somehow. "I'm here for a couple of reasons, so let's get the more unpleasant one out of the way first."

"How is… our case… going?" Rukia asked gingerly.

Yoruichi stuck out her lower lip thoughtfully. "It's on the backburner, and that's where it should be. The new Central 46 is a dumpster fire right now, all posturing and politicking and backstabbing. Be grateful you've been forgotten for the time being."

Rukia wasn't exactly surprised, but it didn't mean she had to be happy about it, either.

Yoruichi unfolded a sheath of papers and smoothed it flat. She slid it across the table for them to see. They squinted at it for a moment, trying to process what they were looking at.

"Ozui gave us this," Rukia realized first. "Only with a lot more black strike-throughs." It was the information on the artifact that created the shadow monster.

"And fewer pages," Renji observed.

"What did he tell you about it?" Yoruichi asked.

"It was a way for someone to send themselves across worlds," Rukia said slowly. "And that we needed to keep the smoke sending busy so they could track down the sender in Soul Society. That's about it."

Yoruichi's eyes were narrowed. "Those stupid-" she made an irritated, very feline noise in her throat. "You kids ever read the 'War Between the Oak and the River'?"

"Sure," Renji replied.

Rukia frowned. He was always reading those boring semi-historical novels, the _nerd._ "I saw a play of it," she hedged. She didn't say she had _paid attention_.

"You remember the Pendant of the Ravenous Soul?"

"Yeeeaaah," Renji drew out slowly.

Yoruichi tapped the piece of paper. "It was based on this."

"I fell asleep halfway through the first act, fill me in," Rukia grumbled.

"In the story," Renji said, scanning the page at the same time, "the evil magician-general uses this magic doohickey to steal power from other magical realms, that he then uses against the hero's army."

"Steal power?"

"Yeah, he kills the spirits that live there, and that gives him his magic. Eventually, the spirits from the Kingdom Under Waves and the Deepest of Woods show up and blame the good king, and there's a big complicated war."

"It's really long, I remember that." Rukia tapped her chin. "Someone's killing the Hollows to get power."

Yoruichi nodded slowly and deliberately.

"Why wouldn't Ozui tell us this?" Rukia asked suspiciously.

Renji looked up from his reading.

"Very astute, Kuchiki. There are two reasons. First, while the exact location and ownership of this lovely object is currently unclear, it is well documented which noble family acts as its steward. Secondly, ever since Tessai and Hachi were simultaneously lost from the Kidou Corps, there has been a literal power vacuum there. A few others have held the position of Grand Kidou Chief, but none of them have had the abilities to back it up. There are a few candidates currently jostling for the position as we speak."  
"So… politics?" Renji scoffed. "I don't know any of these people and I don't give a crap about who did what. Seems like Ozui is withholding info that could get us killed. That's what I care about."

"Ah, you're really a breath of fresh air, Abarai," Yoruichi sighed. "Rukia knows who I'm talking about, though, don't you?"

Rukia nodded slowly. The politics were complicated. There were numerous families involved, especially when you counted in alliances and fealties branching both upward and down, all made even more complicated by the turmoil of the current Central 46 situation. Accusations like this could be as deadly as daggers. "To be fair, though, I also don't give a crap about their dumb power grabs."

Yoruichi nodded. "I wish I didn't. In any case, keep that safe. Don't let Ozui know you know any more than what he told you. There may be some clues in there as to how to catch this thing."

"How did they beat it in the book?" Rukia asked Renji.

"I think they used a magical golden net, woven from the hair of 300 drowned maidens?"

"That's some nonsense, we're not doing that."

"Yeah, _obviously._ What about the Hollows?"

"The Hollows?" Yoruichi echoed. She took a sip of her tea, and did a double take at it. "Wow. That's some tea."

"Thanks," Renji said, taking the comment completely at face value. "The Hollows. They come up from the sea, once a month, and the smoke monster kills them. Eats them. They're nasty, powerful ones, too."

Yoruichi frowned. "I knew there were some Hollows, but I figured they came out Hueco Mundo or the Dangai as usual. The sea. Interesting. Seems worth investigating."

"Ozui said he would. I'm not sure I believe him," Rukia explained.

"I'm quite sure I don't believe him," Yoruichi agreed. "Speaking of which, item number two! Ozui asked you to investigate a certain person, a dead _itako_, did he not?"

"Yeah, but he didn't tell us why," Renji pointed out.

"I will tell you why," Yoruichi replied. "It's because Squad 2 doesn't know where she is."

"Why would they?" Rukia asked, brow furrowed.

"Well, as you know, Soul Society doesn't keep any sorts of records as to which souls are sent to Rukongai. Except when they do. Our intelligence indicates that when she was alive, Nagato had a spiritual bond with someone living in Soul Society. That's dangerous. People like that sometimes retain their memories and their connections to the World of the Living when they die. That's part of why it's illegal. Anyway, records say she was sent to the 63rd District of North Rukongai. Except that they can't find her there now."

"The 60's are pretty rough. She's probably back in the resurrection cycle," Renji theorized.

"Oh, _probably_," Yoruichi agreed. "Or, her patron soul, most likely someone powerful from a noble family, found her and she's been helping them wreak havoc in her old Living World stomping grounds."

Rukia wrinkled her nose. Renji rubbed his face with his hands.

"I don't know that for sure. And I don't know what good that knowledge will do you. But I thought you deserved to know."

"Thanks," Rukia sighed. She felt very tired.

They were quiet for a moment. Renji drummed his fingers on the table.

Yoruichi drank some tea, shuddered, and then took another swallow.

"Hey, Yoruichi?"

"What's up, Freeloader?"

"While you're here, could I ask you a favor? Could you help me with my hakuda? I'm 'sposed to be fighting in my gigai, and I wasn't able to do much."

Yoruichi's eyes lit up. "How much sake you got around here?"

"It's New Year's, so… lots?"

"I cannot think of a more perfect New Year's than beating up a man and then getting utterly plastered. You got a deal, Red." She slapped the table. "Oh! Speaking of the New Year!" She picked up the rest of her packet dumped out a pile of cards, which she quickly sorted into two piles, one for Renji and one for Rukia.

Rukia's hands shook as she accepted her little stack. Her eyes locked on the familiar, graceful handwriting on the top one. It was in an envelope, sent by someone who did not approve of new-fangled ideas such as "postcards."

"What's this?" Renji asked, accepting his.

"Sorry I couldn't get more of them," Yoruichi shrugged. "Couldn't blow your cover inside Soul Society. I told the Karakura kids that you guys were off on a mission and would appreciate some mail."

Renji was making a face. "Do they always do this?" He held up a photo card that featured Urahara, Tessai, Jinta and Ururu in matching sweaters. Urahara was holding cat-Yoruichi in a death grip; her eyes were bugging out slightly.

"_Yes_," Yoruichi replied dryly.

Renji glanced over at Rukia, who was still staring at her own name written on an expensive envelope in her brother's hand. He laid his cards down. "Let's go downstairs, Yoruichi. I'm ready for fighting."

"Sure," Yoruichi agreed, bracing herself and then finishing her tea. "Hey, did you know that I did shots with Motley Crue in a bar in '94? I'm not saying I made out with Nikki Sixx, but I'm not saying I _didn't_, if you get my drift."

"Can we just skip to the part where you hit me in the face repeatedly? Please?"

Rukia put her card from Byakuya aside when she heard the trapdoor to the basement slam shut. She laid out the others message-side up, drinking in the familiar handwriting without actually reading them. Ichigo's chicken scratch. Her own captain's old-fashioned, crabbed hand. Chad's bold slashes, Ishida's careful economy. Orihime had included a drawing of an Orihime bunny hugging a Rukia bunny, in the style Rukia had taught her.

A family card from the Kurosakis, signed by everyone.

The same Urahara Shoten card Renji had gotten, also signed by all.

She worked her way through the others, slowly and carefully, enjoying every cheerful well-wish, hearing everyone's voice in her mind, until there were only two left. Rukia looked at one and then the other, and finally picked Ichigo's.

"What a year, right? I'm getting so much sleep and all my homework's done, you wouldn't believe it. I'm glad you're out there, raising hell, with or without me." He had signed it "15." Rukia smiled fondly, her heart aching. It was exactly what she would expect from him. She missed him terribly. But he was fine. Maybe even happy. You could miss a part of your life that was gone and also be happy in the here and now. He was doing it. She was doing it. She took a deep breath, and reached for the last card.

The stationary was expensive. The ink was expensive. It was sealed with expensive wax that had been stamped by a 2000-year-old piece of jade carved with the Kuchiki family crest. On the back of the card was written "I miss you."

* * *

Rukia dissolved into tears.

"You fistfight like you're in a Lower Rukongai street brawl," Yoruichi observed, probing at the bruise on her upper arm tenderly. He'd only landed the one hit.

"Imagine that," Renji groaned from his prone position on the dojo floor, feeling every one of the many, many hits she had landed on him.

"All blunt trauma, no subtlety. You're just armoring your limbs with reiatsu and hitting as hard as you can. I mean, I guess that's a style."

Renji grimaced.

"To be fair, you do hit very hard. That right arm of yours is like the Dangai cleaner." She helped pull him to his feet. "I need you to try to focus your reiatsu more. Think of your arm as a sword instead of a club."

He swung at her from the left. She deflected it easily, but nodded. "Good. Other side." He swung from the right. "No good. Again." He tried again. "Poor. Left again. Good. Right again." He kicked her in the shin with his right foot. "YOWTCH, that hurt, very good. Right arm, now." He tried again. She caught his fist.

Yoruichi tapped her chin thoughtfully. "I know you're more of a zanjutsu guy, and you've got that huge honking bankai, so I guess you've just gotten used to going full reiatsu firehose down your right arm."

Renji looked downright miserable. "I don't think this is going to work."

"It's not so hard! Try to visualize those anatomy drawings from your old school books. You've got your four reiryokou lines coming down your arm. Your east and west merge upstream of the wrist vents, the north and south come in downstream." Yoruichi's hand flared with reiatsu, the flame warping as she spoke. "Open up the east-west line for more precision...north-south for thrust. You just...flex...and relax...and closed...and open. Easy-peasy, right?"

Renji huffed. "Look, I don't like to make a big deal about this, but I shattered that arm all to hell when I was a kid. It was in the middle of a fight, and I held everything together with my reiatsu until it was over. I...burned clear through all that ductwork."

Yoruichi blinked at him. "You _what?"_

He shrugged, and holding out his arm, tried to repeat what she had done. Instead of the delicate shape changes her reiatsu had made, his just blazed on and off like a gas flare. Yoruichi grabbed his arm, concentrating on what was going on inside it. Her eyes narrowed, then widened.

"Abarai, that is _super_ messed up. You should get that fixed."

He shrugged. "It's really fiddly surgery, apparently, and it happened so long ago that it's part of my psychic imprint. If you cut my whole arm off and then regenerated it, it would grow back the way it is. Fixing it properly would take months." He flexed his hand thoughtfully. "Also, it gives me incredible wrist strength. I'd have to completely relearn how to fight with Zabimaru."

"How do you even do kidou?"

"Uh, poorly? Look, it's not like I can do anything about it now anyway. You got any other ideas?"

Yoruichi shook her head in disbelief. "I have never heard of anything like this before. I can't believe you fight as well as you do with that mess." She thought for a few minutes, pacing back and forth. Renji could practically see her tail whipping back and forth. "You might be able to meter it by venting somewhere else." She wrinkled her nose, obviously wrestling with something. "This goes against my general principals, but I could teach you how to vent reiatsu back out of your _saketsu_. The trick is that you have to turn it into undirected kidou first." Her face looked pained.

Renji was confused. "Okay… why would anyone want to do that? And why don't you want to teach it to me?"

"It's the foundational skill of shunkou," Yoruichi scowled. "I just want you to use it as a pressure bleed for upstream flow control, but if you get any good at it, you can shield your back and shoulders with kidou."

Renji looked hopeful. "Won't the gigai's reiatsu suppression system just absorb that?"

Yoruichi looked thoughtful. "That's a good question. It lets chanted kidou through. I'm honestly not sure. I _am_ sure that Kisuke would be very interested to know."

"So maybe you should teach me for research purposes," Renji suggested.

Yoruichi chewed the inside of her cheek. She was wavering. "You seem like the sort of guy who tends to lose his shirt in a fight anyway, that doesn't bother you, right?"

Renji made a pained face. "On one hand, _yes_, I do have a habit of trashing kosodes. On the other hand, Captain Kuchiki has specifically asked me to _do better_ on that score."

Yoruichi's eyebrows shot up. "Doubt vanquished, I am definitely teaching you this, now." She rubbed her hands together eagerly. "I guess we better go up and ask Rukia if she has a chest wrap I can borrow. I mean, I'm perfectly happy to fight you tits out-"

"I AM SURE SHE HAS ONE."

"Now that I think of it, if I'm going to the trouble of teaching you this, I might as well teach her, too. I like Rukia. I wouldn't mind Rukia picking up some shunkou." Yoruichi frowned thoughtfully. "How's she holding up?"

Renji shrugged. "Hanging in there. I guess I'm hanging a little better than she is."

"Yeah, she seems on edge."

"I think it's the holiday."

"Don't tell me she misses Ol' Stoneface."

"Oh, she definitely does. Rukia's real private, though, she doesn't like to talk about stuff like that. I think I'm doing an okay job of giving her enough space."

Yoruichi regarded him carefully. "Aren't you guys best friends or something?"

"I s'pose."

"And in your capacity as best friend, do you think space is what she needs right now? Cut off from home, everyone she knows? Is it doing her any good?"

"It's what she wants," Renji replied grumpily, although even as he said it, he wasn't sure it was true. Sure, she was being closed-off and aloof, but that's exactly what she always did when she needed someone to haul her out of her shell. In fact, she'd even tried to reach out to him, which was rare for her, and he'd cheerfully pushed her away every time. _Crap._

"That wasn't what I asked," Yoruichi replied. "Real talk: Kisuke and I were best friends too, and we got banished, and I was the one who wanted space. He gave it to me, and after we got the Visored stabilized, I skipped town and didn't speak to him for fifteen years. Maybe that was the space I needed. Or maybe I really wanted him to be there for me and he blew it. I dunno. We made up eventually. I feel like it could've gone better."

Renji frowned. "What do you think I should do?"

"Hell if I know. Rukia's not me. You're not actually banished, at least not yet. Maybe she does need space. You're the best friend, you figure it out."

* * *

Renji didn't have much time to figure out much of anything, because they all spent the next few hours blowing kidou out of their shoulder blades (it turned out to be incredibly fun, although trying to use it to meter his reiatsu was going to take a lot of practice, to say the least), which segued directly into boozing and eating and watching football.

The next thing he remembered was waking up the next morning to a cat head bashing into his face. "Put a shirt on, we're going out," Yoruichi's gravelly cat-voice admonished him. Renji's neck hurt something awful. He'd fallen asleep sitting up on the couch. Rukia was at least lying down, her head in his lap. Yoruichi jumped down onto her stomach and started making biscuits. "You, too, Kuchiki!"

"Can we make coffee first?" Renji pleaded.

"No! You're keeping a friend of mine waiting!"

Rukia shoved Yoruichi off and sat up. "A friend?"

"It'll be easier if I just introduce you." She sauntered over to the entryway, and casually started cleaning her ears.

Renji found a t-shirt on the back of the couch, and was trying to figure out whose it was. Rukia pulled it out of his hands, and pulled it on over her sports bra. She shifted her weight, pulled his t-shirt out from between the couch cushions, and handed it to him. They stumbled around, groping for sweaters and shoes and coats while Yoruichi twitched her whiskers impatiently.

When they opened the door, a large, brown cat sat in the grass a few meters away from the house.

"That's your friend?" Rukia asked dryly.

"Isn't that Mrs. Kuwashima's cat?" Renji frowned.

"His name is Bear and he's Mrs. Kuwashima's _colleague_. He doesn't belong to anyone."

"It is very cold out here, can we get this over with?" Renji begged, pulling his wool hat out of his jacket pocket and jamming it on his head.

Bear led the way down to the shore, and then a mile or so south. The tide was out, so a lot more of the beach was visible than usual. The sky was low and grey, heavy with promises of snow. Finally, they arrived at a rocky section of beach. Bear lightly jumped onto one of the taller rocks and very intentionally pointed with one paw at a large, flat rock. It was concave, and contained a shallow puddle of cold, murky water.

"Careful," Yoruichi warned. "Go slow."

Rukia and Renji looked at one another, and approached the rock. It had a dark, nasty feel to it.

"What is this?" Rukia asked, wrinkling her nose. The feel was very localized, but she didn't really want to get much closer to it.

"It's ritual magic," Yoruichi stated simply. "C'mon kids, I know it's gross, but you gotta get right in there. You need to know what this feels like."

Renji took a step closer. He was glad they'd skipped breakfast, his stomach was churning unpleasantly. "Something was killed. Like a sacrifice?"

Yoruichi nodded curtly.

Rukia prided herself on her strong stomach. She took a few steps closer and focused. "This has been used a bunch of times. Two different rituals have been done here. One has been done over and over... a month ago? Most recently? The other is older, but much bigger. The sacrifice was much bigger. A few years ago."

"Why is this so gross?" Renji asked. "I mean, we're death gods, this should be part of doing business, right?"

"Wrong," Yoruichi snapped. "You are a part of the natural order, sorting the dead and the living, and purifying spirits that have gone rotten. This is perversion. When a life is sacrificed, it's lost to the resurrection cycle, and given over to something outside our purview. It is anathema."

Rukia was picking her way among the rocks. She looked a little green around the gills, but she was holding on. If either Renji or Yoruichi had been closer to her, they would have noticed that the air around her was even colder than the morning chill. Much colder. "It goes into the water," she observed. "The dark magic. It's tied to the shipwreck, isn't it?"

"Mreh!" Bear concurred.

"One ritual to sink the ship, and a second, done each month to bring up the victims as Hollows, one by one," Rukia frowned. "What kind of magic is this? Obviously, this is outside of the shinigami arts."

"There are certainly other types of magic in Soul Society," Yoruichi drawed. "But each realm has its own magic. Even humans."

"We can't count on Ozui for help," Rukia realized. "How else can we figure this out?"

"You should be very careful with any information you share with Ozui from here on out," Yoruichi agreed. "I'll talk to Tessai. He knows a little about the magic of this world. He might have some ideas."

"How about this guy?" Renji asked, jerking a thumb towards Bear, who was cleaning his privates. "What's he know?"

"Get real, Renji," Yoruichi replied. "He's a cat."

* * *

Yoruichi hung around for part of the morning to review a few more points of hakuda.

"I should get going," she finally said. "Looks like you're in for some significant snow and I got places to be."

"Soul Society places or Karakura places?" Rukia asked suspiciously.

"My own places," Yoruichi replied unhelpfully. "I'll be back when I can. You kids are doing fine. Don't trust Ozui. Do trust your instincts. Do trust each other."

"Thanks, Yoruichi," Renji said simply. "It was good to see you."

"I guess you fed me, so I can't rightly call you 'Freeloader' anymore, eh? It was good to see you, too, Abarai. Kuchiki."

They watched her trot down the dirt path on her delicate paws, a few fat snowflakes beginning to drift down from the sky.

Ozui called shortly after lunch and wanted to do the Sunday briefing over the phone because of "the weather", even though the snow had only just begun to stick. Rukia reported that she had found someone who told her that Nagato Mio had been "terrifying to children." This did not seem to be what Ozui was looking for. Otherwise, neither side had much to report.

Rukia read and re-read the photocopied pages Yoruichi had given them about this pendant artifact thing. The text was dry and dense, like a kidou theory book. What did it mean that the corporeality of the sending was likely to be dependent on a cyclical archetypal magical focus of the target plane? Or that the sending could extend its time on the target plane by convolving its signature with the willing soul of intelligent native denizen, pending a ritual of submission? Rukia suspected this meant it could ride around in humans, but she felt that the word "convolve" contain subtleties she was missing.

She dug through all the books in the downstairs library, trying to cross-reference. As long as she was looking through them, she kept an eye out for anything that might be a hint at a spell for summoning Hollows, or human magic generally, but there didn't seem to be too much on those topics.

"Wow, is that the textbook from Metaphysics of Other Realms?"

Rukia jumped a foot in the air and nearly cracked Renji in the nose with the back of her head. "Don't sneak up behind me!" She must have been concentrating pretty hard to not have noticed when the grunts and thumps had stopped emanating from the dojo next door. She leaned back in her chair. "You givin' up, quitter?"

Renji leaned against the doorframe with a thump, a towel thrown around his naked shoulders. "For today, anyway. Been down here for hours. This crap is hard. You'll spar with me later this week, maybe?"

"Sure," she agreed amiably. "What was that about this book? You used it in a class? It must have been a later one that I missed."

"Yeah, it was senior year. And trust me, you didn't miss anything."

"Do you know what a 'cyclical archetypal magical focus' is? I've read this part four times and I think I'm more confused than when I started."

"Aw, crap. It was forty years ago, and Momo really carried my butt through that class." He squinted at the book. "I remember this a little. So, Hueco Mundo is a stateless plane. Nothing changes there. It's always night, it's basically featureless. You can enter at different points and it doesn't matter, you end up in the same place. Soul Society is a step up from that, a pseudo-stateful plane. We got seasons, we got day and night, we got weather, but it's all, like, decorative."

"Decorative?"

"Yeah. I told you I hated this arcane nonsense. Everything in Soul Society is a memory. A shadow. Non-functional. In contrast, the World of the Living is, dang, what's it called?" He flipped through a few pages. "I can't remember. It changes, _actually_ changes both in cycles like the seasons, but also it can change over time. The point of all this is what kinda magic a place has. In Soul Society, our magic comes from ourselves or from things people make, artifacts and zanpakutous and stuff. In the Living World a lot of magic comes from nature, and in particular things that change. Like, holidays where stuff can happen that can't happen at other times, Obon and stuff."

"So, a holiday would be a 'cyclical archetypal magical focus'?"

"Yeah, or like the constellations or uh…"

"The moon?"

"Sure. The moon's a good one." He frowned. "I can't believe I remembered any of that."

"So our smoke sending is more corporeal on the full moon." She pulled out the photocopies again. "It is able to more fully interact with the target plane, which can lead to better capacity for energy capture, but it also becomes more vulnerable to the binding physical principles of the realm." She stuck out her lower lip. "So it's better able to eat ghosts and Hollows, but it also might be the best time for us to defeat it."

Renji pushed himself off the doorframe and ruffled her hair. "Speaking of eating Hollows, I'm hungry. I'm gonna go up and start dinner."

Rukia raised one eyebrow. "We can't possibly be out of food."

He shrugged. "We're not _out_, but there's less than you'd think. Yoruichi eats a lot." He took a step toward the stairs, then looked back at her. "You wanna help?"

Rukia regarded him suspiciously. "What do you want my help for?"

He shrugged, re-tying his ponytail. "'Cause I like doing stuff with you."

Rukia froze.

"You certainly don't have to. I thought you might like a break. Sometimes I do my best thinking when I take a break and do something with my hands."

Rukia chewed her lip. "I don't… really know how to do anything useful," she demurred.

"That's a lie. Orihime told me you were good at chopping. C'mon. You can even just keep me company if you don't want to do anything. Tell me what you found in the books."

"I just don't want to ruin your cooking," she grumbled, marking her page.

"I am quite capable of ruining my own cooking, thank you," he replied.

As they emerged from the trapdoor, they were both surprised to see that there was now a good five inches of snow on the ground, and more was falling in the rough, swirling wind.

Rukia sighed. "At least it's a three-day weekend and I don't have to go to work in this tomorrow."

Renji remained transfixed, pinned by memories of their childhood. The weather in Soul Society was strange- generally mild and pleasantly seasonal in the Seireitei, but as you moved further out, it grew less predictable, more volatile. In Inuzuri, it wouldn't rain for months, and then they would get deluges. And in the winter, snowstorms, a lot like this one. They would come out of nowhere and last for days on end. Trapped inside a frigid, filthy squat, no food, melted snow their only water.

Rukia noticed the faraway look in his eyes. "You okay?"  
He shook his head. He didn't want her thinking about that stuff. "I'm gonna make some soup. That would be cozy, right?"

"Yeah, that sounds nice," she agreed. "I know how to make cocoa! Yuzu taught me."

"Aw, that would be great."

The kitchen was just barely big enough for two people, but they made it work, Renji occasionally reaching around Rukia, or Rukia ducking behind Renji. They weren't in a hurry, and it was bright and warm in the tight space. In short order, soup was bubbling on the stove, and they sat down, side by side on the couch, cradling mugs of cocoa in their hands.

Renji's eyes kept darting to the window, though it was opaque with fog from the warm air in the kichen.

Rukia caught the expression on his face. "You're thinking about Inu-"

"I'm not," he cut her off. "I'm not thinking about it."

"Did you ever look at your cards?" she changed the subject quickly. The little stacks of New Year's cards had ended up on the coffee table.

"Oh, yeah!" he exclaimed. "Yeah, that was real nice, wasn't it? Except Ichigo, who wrote something very rude to me."

Rukia smiled. "Can I see it?"

"I mean, it's not fit for public consumption, but you're used to him, so I guess it's okay."

She picked up his stack of cards and flipped through them. "Wow, Chad wrote you a _book_."

"I know. Everyone wrote something really heartfelt. Well, Jinta drew an unflattering picture of me, but that's pretty heartfelt for a dirtbag kid. I usually just write a greeting on mine."

Rukia paused in her flipping. "I guess it hasn't even been a year. Wow."

"What hasn't?"

"It occurred to me that I have never received a New Year's Card from you, and then I realized that it hasn't even been a year since we became friends again." She smiled at him. "Feels like it's been much longer than that, huh?"

He wracked his brain. "We had one New Year's. At the Academy. I made you a card."

She had forgotten about that. Money was always tight in those days, and neither one of them were quite sure how this card business was supposed to work. Renji could draw decently well, when he felt like it, and he had presented her with a rather overblown illustration of what he felt they would both look like when they were captains. Rukia, who had assumed they weren't bothering with this nonsense, stayed up half the night making him one that would show off how far her handwriting had improved, the problem being that it hadn't actually. She'd ended up slapping a few bunnies over the worst of the ink splotches and slipping her best effort into one of his text books, too embarrassed to give it to him directly. She wondered if he ever found it.

"I wonder if I still have that somewhere," she mused. Now that she thought about it, she was pretty sure she did.

"Well, I still have the one you gave me," he replied, solving that mystery. "I keep it with the forty years worth of New Year's cards for you I have stowed in a closet back in Soul Society. You can have 'em, if you want, after we get back."

"Renji!"

He shrugged, unashamed.

"And all of them just say 'Happy New Year'."

"Oh, not for you. No, I take that back, you can't see them. Some of the early ones are _entirely too heartfelt_, if you get my drift."

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, but he was just sipping his cocoa calmly. "Ah, here we go! 'Don't get stabbed too much. Rukia has better things to do than save your butt all the time.'"

"See? Rude."

"And then he wrote, 'Good luck, you guys are the best.'" She shoved Renji in the shoulder. "That was very nice!"

"It's just the truth, we are the best." He ruffled her hair.

She started to put the cards back down, and noticed the envelope in his stack. "Did Brother… I mean… uh…" Rukia wasn't entirely sure what she was trying to ask, but fortunately, Renji did.

"Oh, I was meanin' to ask if you would take a look at that. I been gettin' pretty good at dealin' with nobles, but the one thing I'm still crummy at is when they say one thing and it means something else, and I think this is one of those times."

Gingerly, she eased the card from the envelope. "So, the first thing you have to understand is that he sends out _hundreds_ of New Year's cards. Mostly on behalf of the family. Obviously, he doesn't write most of them himself. So the fact that you got a personal one is something." She frowned. "Although it's not like he could delegate this, so..."

"He didn't have to send me a card at all."

Rukia shook her head. "Ignoring etiquette is literally painful to him. Not sending you a card would indicate that he hates you so much he is willing to go against his principles to tell you so. He has a list of people he hates that much. Do not flatter yourself that you are on it." Rukia pursed her lips. "Okay, he's used the lower-middle tier salutation… that's probably appropriate for his own lieutenant? It's the same that he would use for the head of a second- or third-level vassal family."

"I am already confused."

"He used the greeting that he would use if you hadn't been fired."

"Ah! That was nice of him."

"He's never 'nice.' He doesn't know how to be 'nice'. It's what he felt was _appropriate_. And then he writes, 'I will be counting on you in the new year.'"

"I mean, that's pretty standard, right?"

"On one hand, yes. But given the circumstances, it could be incredibly sarcastic, which I doubt, or he might be trying to tell you he thinks you'll be coming back."

"Or he wants me to look out for you," Renji finished. "That was my guess."

Rukia was quiet.

"I keep tellin' him you don't need lookin' after, but he keeps tellin' me to, anyway." It had not occurred to Renji until just this second that perhaps that was another one of those times when Byakuya said one thing and meant something slightly different.

An awkward silence hung between them for a few seconds. "I'm gonna go check the soup," Renji finally said, hopping up. "That cocoa you made is real good, you should drink yours before it gets cold."

Argh, he chided himself, you've done it again, Abarai, pushing her away. The soup, which was mostly made of odds and ends left over from his New Year's cooking binge, was bubbling merrily, giving off a pleasant aroma. He'd managed to learn to cook pretty well, but still hadn't figured out how to talk to the most important person in his life. Well, it took a lot of bad food to get here, and Rukia had suffered through it. Maybe he just had to _try,_ and if she had to suffer through some bad friendship to get to the good stuff, so be it.

Taking a deep breath, he vaulted the back of the couch to land next to her again.

He'd forgotten about her cocoa.

"Renji!" she yelped, "you goon!"

"Sorry! Sorry!" he apologized, groping around for the napkins that, at all other times, were scattered all over the coffee table. Naturally, there were none now. Finally, he pulled off his bandana, and handed it to her silently. That's when he realized how adorable she looked with hot cocoa dripping off her nose. "Sorry," he managed one last time, although he was sure that the look on his face was not quite selling it. "You didn't get burned, didja?"

"It wasn't that hot," she replied, wiping her face off. "Wasted good cocoa, though. How's the soup?"

"Needs a while longer, but it's gonna be worth it." He took another deep breath. "You've seemed sad lately."

"What?" she paused, clutching the damp bandana in both hands.

"Just… like right now. I know you miss Byakuya. And I know you're still hurting over Ichigo. And sometimes I just try to push past it, and I'm sorry. I shouldn't rush you. It's okay to feel sad. And if you want to talk about it, um, I'm here."

She was staring at him like he'd just sprouted a Hollow mask.

"I don't want to talk about it," she finally said.

"That's okay, too," he nodded. "But you can change your mind at any time. I'd do anything to make you happy, you know that, right?"

She continued to scrutinize his face, looking for something, he couldn't tell what. He managed an awkward half-smile at her.

Rukia looked off to the side. "Do… d'you think I could have a hug?"

Renji was taken back for a second. He had hugged Rukia many times… or had she always hugged him? But he couldn't recall her ever _asking_. It just sort of...happened. And once again, he was leaving her hanging. "Yeah! Yeah, of course, bring 'er in!"

Rukia carefully put the soiled bandana on the coffee table, and then tentatively slipped her arms around his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her close, tilting his head back and closing his eyes. The breath went out of her, and she clutched at him. He squeezed back a little, not too hard. "You give really good hugs," she mumbled into his sweatshirt.

"I'm no Chad, but I do my best," he admitted.

"You always sell yourself short. Stop it. You're you and I like you."

"I'll try," he agreed, giving her an extra little squish, before loosening his arms.

Rukia pulled away before it got awkward, and sat up primly.

Maybe it was already awkward.

"I remember what I was going to tell you," she blurted out. "I think we should try to find out more about Oga Haruta."

"Okay." Renji was used to Rukia changing subjects wildly. Her brain moved quickly, and when she got an idea, she had to get it out. She also did it to get out of conversations she didn't want to have and to push past awkward silences.

"That place Yoruichi showed us- there was an old ritual and then the more recent ones, right?"

"Right."

"Well, I've been thinking about the story Ms. Sunadori told me, and here's what I think happened. I think Oga Sr. cursed his own ship and sank it. Nothing happens for six years, then Oga Jr. moves back to town, finds dad's old magic kit, and starts casting spells."

Renji nodded slowly. "The timeline works, for sure. But even if a guy wanted to kill himself, you think he would take out an entire ship's crew? That's pretty brutal. And why would Oga Jr. want to raise Hollows?"

"I don't know," Rukia admitted. "On either count."

Renji pulled out his phone and started typing something. "All the more reason to investigate, right?"

"What are you doing?" Rukia demanded.

"Texting him."

"What? You can't just-"

"Sent."

Rukia's eyes went wide and frantic. "Renji!"

He regarded her over the top of his phone. "Our mutually beloved football team won the Emperor's Cup yesterday. I just sent him a congratulatory text with too many exclamation points."

"How do you even remember the game? You were _extremely_ sloshed."

"When I'm that drunk, football is the _only_ thing I can remember. I wasn't much drunker than you and Yoruichi, was I?"

"Less, probably. I was also extremely sloshed," Rukia admitted. "It is impossible to tell with Yoruichi, but at some point, she started trying to light her breath on fire with kidou."

Renji's phone buzzed. He looked smug. "Oh, look, he texted back- do I want to get a beer this week?" He started typing. "Yes...I...do." He hit send with a flourish. "I am a great undercover agent."

"You're a better cook. Is it soup time yet?"

He nodded toward the kitchen. "Let's go see."

* * *

Sleep escaped her.

Rukia had eaten too much soup and fallen asleep on the couch after dinner, curled up against Renji while he was reading. He had woken her up in order to go to bed, and now she wasn't tired at all and her brain was running at a hundred miles an hour.

The wind howled outside. The house wasn't terribly well insulated, and it was quite cold. It didn't bother Rukia much, although she hoped Renji was warm enough. She tried very hard to hear if any snores emanated through the shoji, but perhaps he was just sleeping quietly.

The cold made her think of Sode no Shirayuki.

Renji had needed to force Zabimaru into submission, the way he always did. They vied for kingship of their hill, all three of them, but they fought together as a single entity, twisted strands of a cord.

Sode no Shirayuki was elusive. A fog of breath. A fox's tail disappearing behind a tree trunk. A birdsong with no bird attached.

Byakuya sometimes liked to watch for birds, and he had taken her with him once recently. They had ventured out at dawn, into the woods on the Kuchiki estate. He had warned her to silence. Occasionally, he would hold up a hand, and they would freeze, until he deemed they could move forward again. Eventually, he spotted something he was interested in, a small, round bird with shiny, dark eyes and brown barred feathers. Brother had been pleased. They had returned home.

That was what trying to talk to Sode no Shirayuki was like.

Rukia sat up, and groped for her clothes. She had an idea, a terrible one. Sode no Shirayuki loved terrible ideas.

She had to wrestle the front door closed against the wind. Snow struck her in the face and stung her eyes. It was bitterly cold. It was _nasty_ out.

Rukia pulled the hood of her coat up, and struck out into the woods. It was dark, and she didn't bother to look where she was going. The porch light was on, back at the house, but it disappeared into the swirling snow almost immediately. She lost the path, and soon found herself up to her thighs in a snow drift. Her toes had gone numb in her boots. She lifted her face to the sky. This was insufficient.

Rukia unzipped her coat, and let it drop to the ground. Her sweater followed. She yanked off her boots, and stuffed her socks in the toes, even though they were already soaked. She stood in her skirt and a light t-shirt, and let herself fall backwards into the snow.

Rukia preferred cool temperatures, and she didn't get chills, but this was different. It was cold. It was dang cold. She wondered if her gigai could freeze. It was possible this was an _extremely_ terrible idea.

"Rukia."

Rukia opened her eyes and sat up.

Sode no Shirayuki stood before her, dressed in jeans and an insulated coat, a cozy hat pulled down over her ears. "Did you wish to speak with me?"

"I did," Rukia replied, trying not to sound over-eager. "Thank you for coming."

"All you had to do was ask."

The corner of Rukia's mouth quirked up. "Do you recall the enemy we fought last week? Not the Hollow, the smoke creature."

Sode no Shirayuki nodded. "I do."

"I've never encountered its like. I couldn't touch it. I couldn't bind it with kidou, I couldn't trap it with ice."

"Bindings are meant to catch souls or bodies. The creature we fought was neither. It is nameless, a rejection of form." A soul had to discard these things to travel to another world, Rukia remembered reading in the book excerpt.

"What can I do? Would a barrier spell work better?"

"It might be sufficient to keep it from you, if that is what you wish. I am not sure it could contain such a thing."

Rukia stuck out her lower lip. "What can I do?"

Sode no Shirayuki put her hands in her pockets. My zanpakutou is an jerk, Rukia thought, shivering. "I could bind it."

Rukia hugged her knees. "What?"

"You could plunge my blade into its mass and bind it to our shared soul with my name." Sode no Shirayuki pursed her lips. "It would be a huge risk."

Rukia didn't want to complain about the cold in front of her zanpakutou, but she really needed Sode no Shirayuki to speed things up a bit. "What? Why? I don't understand."

"It's nature is cold, void, absence. Too close to my own. It would be a war of wills. If we could not overpower it, we might end up lending my power to it instead."

That sounded like something Ichigo would go ahead and try anyway. A terrible idea, indeed.

"Can all zanpakutou bind things? Would it work better for someone who doesn't have an ice-type zanpakutou?"

"Not all zanpakutou have this ability, but it is certainly not unique to me."

Rukia had to raise her voice over the shrieking wind. "Could Zabimaru do it? You told me their nature was the opposite of yours! Would it work? Would there be less danger of things going wrong?"

Sode no Shirayuki's eyes narrowed. "Zabimaru would be a much better opponent for this creature, it is true. But it would require a level of control beyond that of Zabimaru's wielder."

"Could he learn? Could I teach him?"

Sode no Shirayuki paused. "You are very talented, Rukia, at channeling power. Further, my power is laminar, well-behaved, flow from a tap. Zabimaru is more powerful than I, but disordered. Uncontrollable. A torrent from a burst dam. And Renji has not the talent for taming things that you do."

Rukia cursed. "Do you have any other ideas?"  
"I suppose you must fight the thing from some other angle. Find the place where it sleeps. Find the one who controls it."

Rukia's limbs were starting to shake. "I don't know if I can do those things! Sode no Shirayuki, I can't stay out here, I have to go."

"This has been a very pleasant visit," Sode no Shirayuki replied mildly. "Shall I come see you again?"

"Yes, can you come to my house?"

"Of course, if you like."

"Great." Rukia was searching around in the snow. She shrugged into her coat, which was filled with snow, but her sweater was lost. She stuffed her bare feet into her boots, suspecting that trying to wrestle the wet socks onto her icy feet would just waste time. Better to just get home. "Is there a way I can call you? Ask you to come?"

Sode no Shirayuki cocked her head thoughtfully. "I will come when I wish."

Right. Sure.

"I am looking forward to when you have that mark placed on your shoulder. I will come to see it."

"Okay, next week then, I guess?"

"Until then."

It was much more difficult to get back to the house, but eventually she spotted the porch light valiantly fighting against the low visibility. Rukia tried to be quiet coming in, but she was clumsy with cold, her hands like paws. She desperately hoped she hadn't ruined her gigai.

As she was pulling off her wet clothes, she started to get the shakes. She took a deep breath, and focused on forcing her arms through the sleeves of her sleeping kimono.

There was a soft shush of the shoji sliding open. "Hey," Renji's sleepy voice called. "Everything okay?"

"I'm gettin' d-d-dressed, d'you mind!" she tried to snap, but her stutter ruined the effect. "I had to go out."

"You had to- you went outside? In the storm?"

There was another sliding noise and footsteps, and she felt warm hands on her chilled shoulders, burning like brands.

"_Crap_, Rukia, you're like ice. What were you thinking?" He helped her get her kimono tied, and pushed her towards her futon.

"She came. I talked to her."

He tucked her blanket over her. "Sode no Shirayuki?"

"Yeah. Y-you know how she is."

"Che. Even crazier than the lady who swings her." He disappeared for a moment and came back with his own blanket, which he spread on top of hers.

"You'll be cold," she mumbled.

"I sure will," he agreed, and slid under the blankets with her, curling around her and rubbing his hands in big circles on her arms. "Ai, ai, ai, you're cold."

She chuckled, despite herself. "Hug me around my core, you're 'sposed to warm up my trunk first."

"Go ahead and laugh at me, you ingrate." He wrapped one arm around her stomach and one around her shoulders. "How are your extremities? Can you feel your fingers?"

"Yeah, they're starting to burn. Everything's starting to burn."

"Good." She felt him press his forehead into the back of her head and she realized she had scared him, badly.

"The cold can't kill me. At worst, I've just frosted a gigai."

"Do you want to just get out? Am I doing this for nothing?"

"I don't know. I feel like the gigai has a better chance of surviving with me in it."

"That sounds like some bullhockey, and you just like sticking your cold butt up against my stomach."

"Renji."

"Yeah?"

"Thank you." She pressed her feet together, and stuffed them between his calves. He made a pained whimper. "Will you stay?"

"Stay? Stay where? I ain't going out in that storm, only a crazy person would do that."

"Stay the night. Here. With me."

"Oh." He scooted his chin onto the top of her head. He had started doing that after his first growth spurt. He really was stupidly tall. There was just so much _more_ of him than her. "Are you going to sleep? I think you aren't supposed to go to sleep if you might have hypothermia."

"I am an expert on my own body temperature and I tell you I am warming up just fine. I am definitely going to sleep."

"Okay. Well, I'm just gonna stay here and make sure you keep breathing, okay?"

"That sounds like a good plan."

He sighed. "Did Sode no Shirayuki have any good ideas?"

"No, only bad ones."

"Oh."

"But she came. She said she would come back, without me having to do this again."

He was quiet for a moment. "First step to bankai."

"First step to bankai," she agreed, sleepily.

"That's my girl," she heard him mumble as she dropped off to sleep.

~ end part 9


	11. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

* * *

Getting people to tell you things was turning out to be an important skill when it came to Onmitsukidou missions. Maybe he _should _consider a career change, Renji contemplated.

Oga was on his third saucer of sake when he came out with, "So, what was it like? Dying?"

"Huh?" Renji replied. Fortunately, this gigai had roughly his normal alcohol tolerance, not like those rotten standard issue field gigais they'd had on the Advance Team.

"You said at the Christmas party that you died once. How dead were you?"

Up until now, the conversation had consisted almost entirely of recapping the Emperor's Cup and Kyoto's prospects for next season. It had been mostly one-sided, with Renji holding forth, and Oga nodding or occasionally offering a counterpoint, but mostly looking preoccupied. Renji had just kept bloviating, waiting for the guy to get drunk enough to say his piece.

Renji was something of an expert on drunks. He used to be one, himself, in the dark times. After he decided there were things in life worth fighting for, he'd gotten in the habit of trying to stay less drunk than whomever he was with. There were certain advantages to this strategy-you didn't embarrass yourself, for one. You got to make sure your friends all got home. You would usually be able to remember it when Rangiku inevitably fell out of her shihakushou. And people told you things. _All_ _sorts_ of things.

"I'm pretty sure I flatlined," he replied, taking a drink. "It wasn't in a hospital or anything, so I can't be sure."

Oga regarded him respectfully. "So, what was it like?"

Renji took a moment to size Oga up. Obviously, he was going to tell him, but he needed to look reluctant, to make Oga feel big. "Why? Why do you want to know?"

"Because it's interesting? Why doesn't everyone ask?"

Renji shrugged again. "Because it's weird. You want the normal version or the weird version?"

"Of course I want the weird version."

Renji wobbled his head from side to side a little, as if he were considering it. "Do you want the weird version or the _super weird _version?"

Oga just stared at him, the expression of a man who wanted it as weird he could get with a side order of spooky, if possible.

Renji leaned forward and put his elbows on the table. "Okay, super weird version. The long and short of it is that my buddy Hiroshi stepped on an IED. It was in this old condemned house where some idiots had been practicing building bombs. I was barely in the door, just after him. It was so loud, it was like there wasn't any sound, and I got knocked to the ground. I sit up, there's rubble and crap everywhere, and all our squadmates are behind me, and Hiroshi is standing in front of me. My hearing's coming back, real slow, everything sounds far away. I think, oh, good, Hiroshi's okay, and then I realize there's two Hiroshis, one that's a pile of bloody meat on the ground, and then there's a Hiroshi that looks like regular Hiroshi standing overtop that one. And I look down, and I'm sitting up, but there's also a me that's lying down, like, I'm half in and half out of my body, which is also not looking so hot."

"Whoa," Oga gasped.

"Yeah, and I've got a chain attached to me here," he pointed to his chest, "that goes back down into my body. Hiroshi's got one, too, except his is busted, not attached to his body. He's yelling at our buddies, but they can't hear him. I keep trying to tell him I can hear him, but he's freaking out too bad. So then, this other dude comes trotting out of nowhere, dressed like an extra in a Kurosawa film, all in black. He looks at Hiroshi, says 'we gotta get you moving along, buddy', and pulls out a sword, like a samurai sword. Then he sees me as he's walking past. He looks, gives a little yank on that chain and says 'You got some time yet."

Oga's eyes were wide. It was time for the kicker.

"Then he puts his hand on my head like so," Renji reached out and palmed Oga's forehead, "and just puuushes me back in. Woke up in the hospital three days later." He kicked back the rest of his sake.

It was basically a true story, anyway, or at least an aggregate of many. He hadn't been the one half-hanging out his body, though. Battlefields were nasty places, where angry, violent, young people died sudden, unfair deaths. Hollows sprang up quick and had plenty of dinner choices. Squad 11, in particular, was often deployed on konsou sweeps to keep things neat and tidy. Renji knew he didn't always have the best bedside manner when it came to ghosts, but he did have a certain rapport with dead soldiers.

"Weird enough for you?" he asked with a raised eyebrow. "My wife's about the only one who believes me."

"No, no, I've heard stories like that before," Oga replied. "The man in black. What was he like?"

"I dunno. Just seemed like a normal guy, except for his clothes. Seemed a lot like us, a soldier, just a guy going around doing his job. Tall. Long hair in a ponytail, bandana." He pointed to his own bandana. You couldn't go drinking without a bandana.

"I think he meant to guide your friend to the afterlife."

"Seems like. They told me afterwards that Hiroshi died instantly, if that wasn't obvious." He took another drink. "You into this kinda stuff?" Renji poked, very gently.

"I do consider myself somewhat of an amateur scholar of the occult," Oga informed him. Of course he did.

"You gotta personal interest? Ever passed away yourself?"

Oga looked a little uncomfortable. "Not me. My dad… he died a few years ago. He had cancer, so he knew it was going to happen, and he got really obsessed with trying to figure out what was going to happen to him when he died. I think he was trying to game the afterlife. I… I would like to know how it worked out for him."

"That's a tall order," Renji observed.

"I'm just trying to learn what I can," Oga scowled, shaking his head. "Look, man, there's something I just… I just really want to ask you."

"Okay," Renji replied. "Go for it."

"You seem really cool and also brave and also, like, open to the unknown. Will you…" Oga sat up a little straighter, "Will you go ghost hunting with me?"

Renji blinked. For a moment there, he thought he was getting hit on. "Sure. Sounds like a blast."

* * *

Renji was _exceedingly _proud of Rukia.

He probably shouldn't tell her that. If he was going to be proud of her, she would surely prefer it was for the time she killed an Espada, or that she had mastered a double-destruction chant, or that she had manifested her zanpakutou spirit, here in the World of the Living, no less.

But what he was actually proud of was that grumpy, reticent Rukia had chatted up her tattoo artist enough that the woman revealed she also led ghost-tours of the city during the tourist season. She had the woman telling all kinds of spooky stories and legends now, and Renji had filed away at least three places he wanted to go check out.

In addition, Rukia was getting inked like an old pro. He glanced over at his own inner bicep, where Steve was shading the eye socket of the snarling baboon skull, like the one he wore in bankai, only in profile. He hoped Zabimaru would be a little happier after this. The snake half was elated with its tattoo, and the baboon half had been doing nothing but grousing for the last three weeks. It was maddening.

"All done!" Mai announced. Rukia's tattoo was a lot simpler than his own, so it was no surprise she was done first. Mai led Rukia over to a mirrored wall, so she could check it out.

"It's kinda reddish," Rukia noted.

"Yeah, it'll be angry for a week or so. Do you like it?"

"Oh, yes! Yes, it's perfect," Rukia nodded. "You want to see it, Takeru?"

"Of course I do!" he replied. He was dying to see it.

Steve took a break, he wanted to check it out, too.

Rukia was wearing a boy's undershirt, with one strap tucked under her arm to give access to her shoulder blade. It was a look that was already driving Renji mildly crazy, even before she turned to show him the spray of snowflakes cascading down her bare shoulder. The linework was excellent, precise and delicate. His words stuck in his throat. He was having trouble breathing. And then she looked over her shoulder at him, searching his face for approval with those dark eyes that weren't her own, peeking out from under the fringe of her bangs. If they _had _been her own eyes, big and violet velvet, he would have literally died, he decided.

"Wow, that's some really nice work, Mai," Steve admired.

"Hey, that's _my _wife," he managed to get out, hoping he sounded like he was joking.

"_Do _you like it?" Rukia asked. Was she actually unsure? What exactly was his face doing?

"I do!" he blurted out. "I l-love it."

A shy smile spread onto her face, and it wrecked him. She wanted his approval. Rukia, who hadn't sought his approval for a single thing she had done in the entire time he'd known her.

"Let's get you wrapped up," Mai suggested, "and I'll give you the aftercare instructions. Although given how well your husband's first one looks, it seems like he knows what he's doing."

"He does," Rukia replied, a bit of pride in her voice.

Renji let out his breath, slowly.

Steve was grinning at him. "You kids are really cute, you know that?"

Renji laughed nervously.

"You ready to get started again?"

Renji nodded, "Yeah, let's get this done." The buzzing, digging sensation resumed in his arm, and it felt good to concentrate on that.

If Rukia kept giving him looks like that, his resolve was not even going to hold through the weekend.

* * *

"We're not supposed to drink afterward, are we?" Rukia asked as they stepped out onto the street, hoping he might counter her. No such luck.

"Naw. Thins the blood. New tattoos may bleed a little anyway, but drinkin'll make it worse."

"Oh. Nuts. I kinda wanted to celebrate my bravery."

Renji nodded. "Damn straight we should celebrate your bravery. You wanna go get hamburgers? I know you really like 'em and I don't know how to make 'em."

Rukia nodded eagerly. She basically always wanted hamburgers. "I've been gutted twice, it seems silly to celebrate making it through a little tattoo."

Renji wrinkled his nose. "It's good to keep your blood iron up, for one, and for two, stop gettin' gutted, lady, and three, all the more reason to celebrate things."

"You do like it, right? I like yours an awful lot, by the way. It looks so good with the pair of them."

"Thanks," Renji said, a tight, but not unpleasant feeling in his chest. She was starting to do it more and more, but he wasn't sure he was ever going to get used to getting compliments from Rukia. The best thing to do was throw them back at her. "And I told you already, yours is perfect, Ru."

She jabbed him with an elbow for using her real name. Whatever.

"You seemed weird when I asked before."

He set his jaw and looked away. "I got a little emotional about it."

Rukia chewed her lip and tried to catch his eye. "Any particular reason?"

He shrugged, a little defensive. "Y'know, I don't even know how many tattoos I have. The way they blend into each other, how to count them. And most of 'em, I got alone." He made a face. "Iba got one with me once, but his was tasteless, so it doesn't count."

Rukia snorted. Renji had roomed with Iba for over twenty-five years at Squad 11, and the only other Iba story she had ever wrung out of him was that they owned matching floral bathrobes, which they wore around the barracks "for comedic purposes."

"I remember when you showed up with The Brows and we had that big fight," Rukia reminisced fondly. If someone had told her at the time that she would ever reminisce fondly about that moment, she would have had some choice words.

"Well, you thought I got it done 'cause I'd burned off my real ones," Renji chuckled.

"I think mostly I was mad about the money," she replied. "And also, you looked dumb."

Renji sighed. "Lookin' back, I don't blame you for bein' mad. I did it so suddenly and I didn't tell anyone first. I'd… been havin' night terrors. Later on, I figured out that Zabi had a lotta trouble settlin' into me. I just woke up one morning and knew I needed to start markin' myself up, and I had to do it as soon as possible." He rubbed his left bicep. "I know you thought I was just messin' around gettin' these, but Zabimaru hates this gigai, and they help."

Rukia nodded. "No, I understand. Sode no Shirayuki feels the same way."

"Hopefully, it'll help you, too. An' even if it doesn't, we're tattoo bros now. You gonna start wearing tank tops around the house so I can admire it?"

She waggled her eyebrows at him. "Only if you do."

* * *

There was a soft tap on the bedroom door.

"Eh?" Rukia grunted, pulling her head out of her pillow.

"Hey, Ru?" Renji called through the door. "You up?"

"Am now."

"Hey, sorry to bother you, but you got a visitor."

Rukia rubbed her face. Who the hell would be visiting her at 7 o'clock on a Sunday morning? "How presentable do I need to be?"

"Casual is fine. Pjs even. She's bein' pretty patient, so take your time."

Rukia muttered a steady stream of curses as she pulled on a t-shirt and a skirt. She tugged a brush through her hair, and headed out into the living room suspiciously.

There was a bird in the house.

She was a largish bird, grey in color, with a white portion that draped her shoulders like a cloak. Her beak was massive and hooked, and her talons were scratching into the edge of the breakfast table.

Renji was trying to offer her some canned fish, which seemed to confuse her.

"Don't feed her, you dummy," Rukia scolded. She bowed to the bird. "Welcome to our home, Sode no Shirayuki."

The sea eagle ducked her head in return.

"Zabimaru likes human food," Renji grumbled. "I was just trying to be hospitable."

Sode no Shirayuki turned her head towards Renji and made a low barking cry.

"Do you know what that means?" he asked, sounding a little nervous.

"Nope!" Rukia replied cheerfully. "I'll be right back."

"Where are you going? What am I supposed to do?"

"Do whatever you want, you don't need to entertain her. I'm going to put on a chest wrap. She wants to see my tattoo and I didn't put on a bra under this t-shirt, so unless you want me to-"

"Take all the time you need!" Renji yelped.

Sode no Shirayuki poked at the fish with her beak and abruptly gulped down everything on the plate. She looked at Renji again and gave another sharp bark.

"I told you that you would like it," he informed her. "You want more?"

Bark.

Renji fetched another can and dumped it on the plate for her. She finished that off, too, and then looked at him, appraising him with ice blue eyes that didn't match the rest of her form.

The only zanpakutou spirit he had met aside from his own was Zangetsu, who had ignored him utterly. Ikkaku said that Hozukimaru would only manifest if forced, and that he hadn't actually done it since achieving bankai.

Rukia had often mentioned that Sode no Shirayuki was stand-offish and evasive, but she certainly didn't seem shy of him now. Then again, she was a little hard to read, being a bird and all.

What did you say to someone else's zanpakutou spirit? Well, not just anyone's. He surely owed his life to this creature dozens of times over, and his continued existence most likely depended on her as well.

"It's nice to finally meet you," he settled on.

Sode no Shirayuki barked again, and then started cleaning her feathers.

Rukia returned, shoulders bare. "What do you think? Do you like it?" she asked, turning around.

Sode no Shirayuki squawked excitedly and flapped her wings. She turned her head to Renji and squawked angrily at him.

"I like it, too!" he exclaimed defensively.

Sode no Shirayuki looked exceedingly smug, especially for a sea eagle, and then promptly disappeared.

"I think she's pleased," Rukia beamed.

Renji examined the talon marks in the table. "I sure hope you get bankai out of this."

* * *

Ozui and Mori sat at their kitchen table. Mori was poking the gouges thoughtfully. Neither Rukia nor Renji had offered any explanation for them.

"You got anything for us?" Ozui asked.

"Nope," Renji replied. "You got anything for us."

"Nope," Ozui replied.

They sat in silence for a moment.

"No more amateur detective work? No more weird humans you've befriended?"

"You didn't seem to care much," Rukia pointed out. "So we stopped working so hard."

Ozui stood up. "Good. Quicker meetings from here on out. See you next week, then!"

* * *

"You need to get in the bathroom for a while?" Renji's voice drifted out to the living room.

Rukia turned a page of her manga. "Gross! And no."

"You're gross! I'm trimming my hair!"

Rukia frowned, and put her book down. "Didn't you just get a haircut?" She wandered back toward the bathroom.

"That was for the gigai. This is for me."

Rukia leaned against the doorframe of the bathroom. He was out of his gigai, his long red hair damp and loose around his bare shoulders. He would grab a chunk, pinch it between two fingers, and cut off about a millimeter. She had no idea how he was keeping track of what he had done and what he hadn't. "You aren't cutting very much off," she observed.

"Just the split ends," he agreed. "I've, uh, actually been trying to grow it longer. Look more like an assistant captain and less like a kid."

Rukia didn't think he looked like a kid at all, but she did like the idea of growing his hair out. "It'll look good," she said, trying to sound casual.

"We'll see. Can always cut it off again if I end up looking like a hooligan."

"You _are _a hooligan," she reminded him, pushing off the doorframe and walking away.

Renji thought she was leaving him to his work, but her reflection appeared in the mirror again a minute later, out of her gigai now. He tried to focus, but she kept peering around him, trying to examine herself.

"I'm looking a little shaggy, too," she finally admitted.

"You can use the scissors when I'm done," he grumbled.

She worried her bottom lip with her teeth. "Could you do it?"

He met her eyes in the mirror. "Me? Cut the locks of the Lady of the Kuchikis? I don't think so."

"Aw, come on," she protested. "You always used to. It'll look worse if I do it myself."

He rolled his eyes. "Look, if you leave me alone while I get mine done, I'll do you next, okay?"

"Deal!" she readily agreed, and disappeared.

Fifteen minutes later, he was squinting at her hair as he ran a wet comb through it, trying to remember how her layers worked.

"I could never have the patience to grow my hair as long as yours," she sighed.

"It grows fast," he shrugged.

Rukia scowled at her reflection in the mirror. Speaking of having the same haircut since childhood… "Cut it short, wouldja?"

Renji's eyebrows shot up. "Whaddya mean, 'short'?"

"Just lop it off under my ears. Don't worry about the layers."

"Rukia. Is this a cry for help?"

"Shut up, dummy! I just wanna try something different, and no one's gonna see me anyway. It'll be grown out again by the time we get back to Soul Society."

"I'm 'no one', eh?"

"First of all, I'm in my gigai most of the time. Secondly, we got lice that one time and all five of us shaved our heads together. You aren't going to judge me for one awkward haircut." She paused, and added quietly. "Of course you aren't 'no one.'"

"It was more than 'that one time'," he reminded her, holding the scissors up to her hair at the length he intended to cut it to. "You sure about this? You only thought it up thirty seconds ago."

"I'm sure!"

"Sure you're sure? Positive?"

"I am absolutely, posi-"

"Oops, I already did it. Hope you were sure."

"I am sure! Stop making me laugh!"

She watched his face in the mirror, serious and stern, the same face he had made while he was healing her arm. Every so often his fingers would brush against her neck, and a shiver would run down her spine. Finally, he straightened up, and appraised his work. "Whaddya think? Is that what you wanted? I ain't a professional, y'know."

Rukia turned her face from side to side. It was a very blunt cut, maybe not particularly flattering, but it made her look tough. Serious. Brother would hate it.

"It's a good look for a lieutenant," Renji said out loud. He fished a wet chunk of hair out of her collar.

"Don't you think that's jumping the gun a little?" she demurred.

"No," he replied simply. "I only took the exam myself last spring, and I know your skills. Can't imagine you'd have any trouble passing. I can help you study for the written part, if you want, but you're smarter than me, you probably don't need to. The hard part is getting a captain to take you on, and you already got that covered."

She looked at her face in the mirror. She was making a weird, uncertain, embarrassed face.

Renji stuck his face next to hers, and put on an exaggerated scowl. "You should practice your lieutenant face. Very important."

She tried to imitate him, and ended up looking very silly.

"Your lieutenant face doesn't need to be the same as my lieutenant face. My squad is a bunch of pompous morons who need yellin' at and t'do more push-ups. You'll have to figure out what it is your folks need."

Rukia thought about this. What her squad needed was someone to look to when the Captain was down. They needed leadership. Someone to look to as a model. Someone who knew what they were doing. She certainly wasn't any of those things, but that hadn't let it stop her from telling Ichigo what to do. She put on her best, bossy know-it-all face.

Renji grinned and nodded. "Yeah, that's a good one."

She looked over and smiled at him. It was good to hear him talking about his squad in the present tense again. Even though things were no more certain than before, it felt healthy to assume all would be business-as-usual when then got back.

Renji whacked her on the shoulder with the back of his hand. "I did all the work, so you should clean up."

Although this was perfectly fair in principle, she wasn't about to let him get away with bossing her around, at least not without a fuss. "Ew, I don't want to touch your gross hair!"

"There's nothing gross about my beautiful hair, and anyway, it's all mixed up with your gross hair."

"It's gross because you're gross!"

"Well, you're double gross!"

Yup. Business as usual.

* * *

Rukia poked at her rice dejectedly. It had been such a nice weekend. She did not want to get on the bus. She did not want to go back to the office. She did not want to get yelled at by Sunadori.

"Aftercare time!" Renji announced cheerfully, walking past with a tube of healing ointment in his hand. "You washed it and air-dried it already?"

"Yes," Rukia dutifully replied, slipping the neckline of her blouse down over her shoulder. She felt Renji very gently wipe a thin layer of ointment over it, "just enough to make it shiny", he liked to say. There was no affection in the gesture, no lingering of fingertips. Tattoos were serious business, she supposed. Renji leaned down and peered at her shoulder. "The irritation is starting to go down. It looks really good." He straightened up and frowned at her. "Hey, what's wrong?"

Rukia let her breath out through her nose. "Orihime said something to me once that made no sense at the time, but now it does." She inhaled deeply. "I have a case of the Mondays."

Renji chuckled. "We have Mondays in Soul Society, too, y'know."

"They are a pale imitation of Living World Mondays."

"It'll go fast. By the way, have you thought of anything special you'd like to do on Friday?"

She frowned, confused. "What's happening on Friday?"

Renji made a disapproving face at her. "It's your birthday."

Oh. That. What did she want for her birthday? Only things he couldn't give her. For him to stop being so cheerful and business-like about all this. For his heart to ache the way hers did. For him to want something more from her, the way she wanted more from him.

"Don't you get me anything!" Rukia warned.

"Okay," he replied, holding his hands up defensively. "I just thought maybe I could meet you after work, and we could get dinner in town. Give you a night off from my cooking."

"That sounds okay, I guess." It sounded very nice, actually, although eating his cooking was barely a hardship these days.

"Good." He ruffled her hair. "Now eat your breakfast, you have ten minutes before your bus. Go get that sandwich!"

"It's _bread_, you dummy! Go get that _bread. _"

He looked entirely unperturbed.

* * *

Renji felt underprepared.

Oga was wearing what seemed like a lot of military surplus and carrying a heavy backpack. He was consulting a notebook stuffed with brochures and maps and who-knows-what-else.

Renji had brought a flashlight.

"Here's where we're going tonight," Oga explained, pointing to a spot down the beach. "There's a really old stone bridge here, and legend has it that when it was constructed, a woman was buried alive inside. It was supposed to ward off evil spirits that might wash in from the sea."

"Heavy," Renji agreed. "Is there a ghost? Does she do stuff?"

"I think she weeps and wails."

"Cool, let's go check it out."

The bridge seemed quiet. It was too narrow for car traffic, and they were pretty far out of town. The tide was low, and Renji announced he was going to go underneath.

"Hold on, let me get my equipment!"

"Your what?" Renji asked, turning on his flashlight, and going in.

She wasn't weeping and wailing so much as just shouting.

"What is wrong with you? This is not the part of the bridge where people go! What are you doing, sneaking around my bridge? And ouch, get that light out of my eyes!"

"Evening, ma'am," Renji replied cordially. "I'm guessing you're the ghost of this bridge?"

"Takeru, do you see something? Let me get the tape recorder on!"

"Get in here, man, she's right here."

"I'm not a ghost, I'm a hitobashira, a human pillar. I prevent floods, you know."

She was not the best-looking ghost Renji had ever run into- she was skeletal, dressed in tattered white robes of a cut that wouldn't have been out of place back in Soul Society. She was extremely stable, though, her energy fully integrated with the stones of the bridge. Renji could really appreciate the craftsmanship.

Oga stumbled up next to him, wearing some sort of night vision goggles, his hands full of recording equipment. He was facing the wrong way. "What do you see?" he gasped.

"What is all this? What are you planning to do to my bridge? I'll drop a stone on you!"

"Is she weeping? I feel like I can hear weeping."

"She's right there," Renji gestured. "Criticizing us. Lady, we're two guys out lookin' for ghosts, we ain't doing nothing to your bridge."

Oga dropped his recorder. "You can see ghosts?"

A feeling of horror came over Renji. He hadn't realized. "You _can't _?"

* * *

"So, it turns out," Renji explained to Rukia later, over a before-bed cup of tea, "the guy's got no spiritual senses whatsoever. He just likes to go out and look for ghosts, even though he never finds anything."

"Yeah, I knew there were humans who did that kind of thing," Rukia admitted. "Does this mean he's off the suspect list?"

Renji breathed out through his nose. "I'm not sure. I mean I guess it's possible that he's some Aizen-level trickster who has been playing us since before we joined the Gotei 13. He seems like an awkward little doof who's having a lot of trouble processing his dad's death. Do I think he could cast a dark summoning or help a monster kill people in cold blood? I do not. On the other hand, his dad still could have been responsible for the shipwreck, right? And if that's the case, there might be some other person that his dad knew, and maybe Oga is the link to that person."

Rukia frowned. "Are you trying to justify going out ghost hunting with him again?"

"I just think there's more we can learn from him. We don't know that many humans."

"You know what I think?" Rukia replied archly. "I think you are a sucker for awkward little doofs, especially sad ones. I think you're lonely and like hanging out with him." She'd meant it in teasing, but the accusation came out a little sharper than she had intended.

Renji set his jaw. "You get to go off and be with people all day. Sometimes I get to visit an old lady and ghost who hasn't been out of the house in seventeen years. Maybe I am lonely. And Oga's lonely, too, so what's the harm in it?"

Rukia wrinkled her nose. "Other people are overrated. You can have my job if you want to hang around doofus humans so bad."

"I don't! I want to hang around with Kira and Hisagi and Hinamori and Matsumoto and Madarame and Ayasegawa! I would pay Iba's entire bar tab if I could go out with him right now. Is it the third Thursday of the month yet? Because then I would be at Squad frigging 6 poetry night, and it would be _great_."

Rukia deflated slightly. "Renji."

Renji gripped his forehead. "I'm sorry. I didn't… well, I guess I did mean it. I shouldn'ta got mad, though."

Rukia was honestly slightly surprised he'd made it this long. She knew he was an extrovert and this had to be torturous for him. It occurred to her, for the first time, how much she enjoyed their evenings and weekends together, having him to herself. What a fool she was, as usual, to assume he felt the same.

"You're right, of course," she said quickly. "We might be able to find out something from him. And you should keep an eye on him, as well. He may still be mixed up in all this somehow."

Renji gave her a half smile. "He is a huge dork. Your best friend status is in no danger."

Rukia sniffed. "I should hope not."

* * *

On Thursday morning, when Rukia opened the door to leave for work, Bear the cat was sitting a few feet away from their front door. When he saw her, he stood up and yowled plaintively.

"You go on to work," Renji offered. "I'll go see what he wants."

She got a phone call about an hour later.

"I just wanted to let you know why our buddy stopped by this morning," Renji explained. "Remember that spot on the beach we found at New Year's? Where someone dumped a bunch of trash?"

"Mm-hmm," Rukia agreed. The site of the rituals.

"Welp, they did it again. Probably just an hour or two ago." Oh. Oh, damn.

"Oh, that's too bad." Low tide, probably? That's when more of the rocks would be exposed. Sunadori always kept a tide table tacked up next to the whiteboard, so she glanced at it. Yep, 6:03 am, seemed about right. Hmm. There was a little half moon on today's row of the table. Rukia wondered what that meant.

* * *

"It was neap tide!" Rukia announced as she walked into the house.

"Say what now?" Renji asked.

"What do you know about tides?"

"They're tides. Tide's in, there's less beach. Tide's out, there's more beach."

"But _how _do you know about tides? There aren't any oceans in Soul Society."

He blinked at her. "There's lakes. Isn't there a sea in East Rukongai?"

"It's like you said earlier- in Soul Society we have the memory of tides. The idea of tides. But in the Living World, tides are _real _and they _matter _and they follow _rules _. I went to the library on my lunch break and got some research material." She dropped a pile of books from the children's section onto the table. "When the moon is full or new, the tides are strong. They're called 'spring tides'- the high tide is higher and the low tide is lower. In between are 'neap tides', when low tides are higher and high tides are lower. That was today."

Renji was flipping through one of the books. "Uh, this is all very interestin', but…"

"You said that in the Living World, magic often goes with cyclical things. If the Hollow summoning needs to be performed at low tide on the half moon, _we know when it'll be done next _."

Renji snapped his fingers and shot a finger gun at her. "Damn, you're so smart! Ugh, I wish we didn't have to wait a whole month."

Rukia tapped her chin. "Well, there are two neap tides per month. But I assume since we only get one Hollow per month, the summoning happens at the second one. Did you find any other clues while you were there?"

"Well, since our smoky pal doesn't wear shoes, I gonna go ahead and say it was a human who cast the spell. Footprints in the sand, probably a man's, not as big as mine."

"No one's feet are as big as yours," Rukia broke in.

He ignored her. "-and it looks like he took the woods path that goes back up to the main road."

"Anything else?"

Renji shrugged. "That spell is even ranker when it's fresh. I puked in the ocean."

"Another precious memory to cherish from this wonderful mission."

Renji rubbed the back of his neck. "All jokin' aside, we're gonna have to be careful about that when we try to catch him in the act next month. Hard to keep a low-profile when you're yakkin' your guts out."

"We could try to fight him as soon as he shows up?"

"Naw, we need him to cast it, to draw out the smoke monster."

"Hmm, good point. Well, it's already done for January. Let's just kill the smoke monster_ this _month, and then we won't have to worry about it!"

"I like the way you think."

* * *

"So, is this the year you finally tell me how old you are?" Renji asked, stretching out on the couch after dinner.

Rukia shoved his legs out of the way so she could sit down. "739."

"That doesn't seem right. Didn't you write 918 on your Academy application? And that was a while ago." This was an old joke between them. In fact, Rukia had no idea how old she was. Older than 70, for sure, but her memories before that were blurry.

"It is part of my mystique. I'm older than you, and that's all that matters."

"I'm prettier."

"It's true." Rukia was thoughtful for a moment. "You know, I wonder if Byakuya knows how old I am."

"How the hell would he know?"

"If he knew how old Hisana was. Since she and I died at the same time."

Renji nodded. He never knew what to say when Rukia mentioned her sister. Hisana was a strange, almost mythical presence in his mind. A more mature, more elegant, more noble version of Rukia, with whom Byakuya had been deeply in love. He couldn't picture Byakuya being in love with anyone, but on the other hand, such a woman would likely be pretty hard _not _to fall in love with. That is, unless your turn-ons included foul language, sick burns, questionable decision-making, and generalized dirtbaggery, which Renji's very much did.

"What would he do for you for your birthday? If we were back in Soul Society?"

"Oh, nothing, I'm sure. He probably doesn't even know when my birthday is."

Renji raised one eyebrow. "I don't believe that."

"Are you calling me a liar?"

"Of course I am. You are a known liar. And he remembered my birthday, I am positive he knows when yours is."

"He did not!"

"He did! He let me leave work exactly one half hour early. 'I believe it is your birthday, Lieutenant. You may depart early today, if you wish, so you may get started on whatever disorderly revelries you have planned with your miscreant companions. Please be sure you are sober and on-time to work tomorrow.'"

Rukia's jaw dropped open. "You know how he knew it was your birthday? It's because I told him that morning I was taking you out drinking after work."

A huge grin spread over Renji's face. "Ha, ha! He called you a miscreant."

This was a classic Byakuya "joke": to make two halves of a sick burn to two different people, and then chuckle about it to himself when no one was watching.

Rukia rolled her eyes. "Cripes, his sense of humor. I'm stuck with him, but I can't believe you work for him. I can't believe you _like _working for him."

Renji stretched his arms back and rested his hands on his interlaced fingers. "You don't care for Ms. Sunadori, do you?"

Rukia waffled. "She's okay. She's a pretty tough boss, for sure."

"Was it Tuesday when she had to present some whatever to a customer? And one of your business people screwed up the charts? And you and she pulled some crap out of your asses and re-did the whole thing in, like, an hour?"

"Yes, that was Tuesday," Rukia replied dryly. "Also, you do not understand what I do at work, do you?"

"I have absolutely no idea what you do at work, but I am very proud of you. And then what happened?"

"She charmed the pants off them with my nonsense made-up charts, and we pulled in a huge account. What is your point?"

Renji shot her a finger gun. "That's what working for your brother is like. Only with less pulling in accounts and more fighting monsters. Hundreds of hours of putting up with his pickiness and criticism and perfectionism, followed by the most sublime ten seconds of absolutely owning it."

Rukia shook her head. "You are _so _weird."

Renji's face took on a note of wistfulness. "Do you really think he's really going to let me come back?"

"He said he would, didn't he? He would never lie about something like that."

Renji exhaled slowly through his nose. "Why? Why wouldn't he use the opportunity to get someone new?"

Rukia made a face at him. "Don't be dumb. He likes you."

Renji's brows creased. "Get real."

Rukia regarded her friend carefully. He was usually so good at reading people, but he genuinely didn't seem to know. Then again, Byakuya wasn't exactly "people." "He likes you as much as anyone I've ever seen," she confirmed. "He told a story about you once, and laughed. He never does that."

"Something dumb I did?"

"No, it was the time you made the squad compete for what you had led them to believe was some sort of honor guard that would get them in good with him, but it wound up being gate duty at the Seireitei Orchid Show."

Renji guffawed. "Oh, yeah, that was one of my better ones." He adjusted his ponytail. "To be fair, your brother was extremely hyped up about that orchid show. I lied to no one."

"Do not get me started on that damn orchid show. As if he doesn't win every year." Rukia gathered her thoughts for a moment. "I know I was just making fun of him, but Brother works _so hard _at being a good family head and a good captain, and he's given so much of himself over to it." She shook her head. "And all our stupid cousins are always trying to get in his good graces by sucking up to him, or pulling these utterly petty social maneuvers, and it's vomitous. They don't understand him in the least. They all want to be named heir, and he's made it super clear that he'll only pick someone with captain potential, and instead of working to achieve that, they keep at their scheming and flattery." She smiled at him, a strange, grateful smile that he didn't quite recognize. "And then you came along. You genuinely think he's great, and you admire his weird principles and the way he runs his squad. You worked your butt off for thirty years so you could be his vice-captain and you continue to work your butt off every day for him. You are all he has ever wanted in a relative, except you're not a relative. And so he can't admit that he likes you, even to himself, because that would mean that, once again, he's been won over by a commoner."

Renji was quiet. "I don't agree with _all _of his principles."

"I am quite aware of that."

"You're wrong about one thing, though."

"Yeah, what?"

"You said he likes me as well as he likes anyone. There's one person that he very obviously likes a lot more than me, even if she is a miscreant." He looked at her meaningfully, and Rukia felt her cheeks flush.

"I don't know about that," she demurred.

"That's bull, Rukia." Renji set his mouth. "What did you say to him, just before we left? When you hugged him?"

Rukia looked away. "I think you know."

Renji looked away, also. "That's what I thought. Damn, Rukia, you should have seen his face." He had looked away then, too, unable to face the pain etched on his captain's features. "Anyway, it's pretty clear he loves you, too, even if he'd never say it."

This was the wrong thing to say. Rukia felt some glass vial deep inside her soul crack, flooding her with cold, drowning sorrow. Of course he wouldn't say it. No one would ever say something like that to her. Rukia only ever bothered to love people who were completely unattainable, and that was her business and her business alone.

Renji was looking at her again, trying to get her to look at him. The lighthearted mood of a few minutes ago had abruptly evaporated. "Ru? Hey, are you okay? I didn't mean—"

"Of course you didn't, you dumb oaf," she snapped. It had been a long time since she had called him something that mean and actually meant it. "Who are you to criticize my brother?"

"I wasn't criticizing! I just think you deserve to know how people feel about you, 'sall!"

"I am quite aware of how people feel about me," she snapped. "I certainly don't need you, of all people, to tell me how other people feel about me." She was repeating herself, but the words kept echoing around in her head, like a great tolling bell. "I'm tired, I'm going to bed." She pushed herself up from the couch, and stalked off to her bedroom.

Renji sat, dumbfounded, as the shoji swished shut behind her. What did that mean, 'you of all people'? He had been trying, dammit. Was he _still_ not being a good enough friend? Or… or was it the reverse? Did she suspect he was holding back? Did she know everything? Was she _pissed_? He sighed and slumped down. Probably. She noticed everything, whether he tried to wear the same t-shirt two days running or when he bought a different kind of tea. He was a fool if he thought he could hide something like _being hopelessly in love with her_ for nigh on fifty years.

Renji stared blankly around the living room, wondering what he should do. He was surely overreacting. She hadn't noticed up until now, maybe he was still safe. He knew she was sensitive about Byakuya, and he'd just pushed her too far. He was debating if he should try to apologize to her now or if it would make things worse, when something caught his eye.

The week they'd moved in, he'd put out all those dumb, awful pictures the Onmitsukidou had given them of themselves. But now there was one he didn't recognize. He stood up and walked over to it. Scratch that, he did recognize it. It was the same old frame, but Rukia had replaced the picture with an extremely unflattering one of him asleep on the couch. He glanced at the other pictures. There was one he himself had taken of the both of them when they dressed up for the Christmas party (she always made him take their joint-selfies and send them to her, because she said her arms weren't long enough.) A picture of himself, flexing melodramatically, trying to show off his new tattoos. That one was just from a few days ago. Him again, in his apron, shaking a wooden spoon at the camera and shouting. A selfie of Rukia wearing his sunglasses and bandana that he did not remember her taking.

Despite the pain in his heart, he laughed. It was peak Rukia. He was sure she had been doing this gradually, replacing the pictures, one every few days, waiting for him to notice. And as usual, he hadn't.

And then his eyes fell on the wedding portrait. She had replaced the cheesy photo of them in their gaudy wedding clothes with a Rukia Original. Gingerly, he picked it up and squinted at it. There was a truly excessive amount of detail. That badger was definitely Ichigo, by the scowl. A bunny with kenseikan. A tall bear in the back with a shaggy mop of hair. He didn't know she did birds, but there was a happy little bluebird with star-shaped hair clips, and an opossum(?) wearing glasses and a white cape. In the center were the two rabbits that were recognizably the Satonakas. There were hearts drawn all around them. There were. Hearts. Drawn around them.

Realization hit Renji like an el Directo. Everything he thought he knew was wrong. He'd had his head so far up his own dumb ass, he hadn't even noticed it. If he had been in any other state of mind, he _still _probably wouldn't have even noticed. Rukia wasn't mad at him because he was in love with her. She was sad at him because she thought he _wasn't _.

~ end part 10


	12. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

* * *

"SATONAAAKAAA!"

Rukia snapped to attention. She hadn't heard Sunadori this pissed (at her) in weeks. It was almost nostalgic. "What have I done, ma'am?" she shouted.

"What. is. _THIS_?" Sunadori shoved her phone at Rukia.

Rukia squinted, trying to parse what she was looking at. It was a poorly-lit selfie of two men standing next to an old bridge, grinning and holding up beers. One of them was wearing night-vision goggles. The other one lived in her house.

"What a pair of goobs," Rukia commented dryly. "He's sending you selfies now?"

Sunadori put her hands on Rukia's desk and leaned forward, eyes narrowed. "Has _your husband _been _ghost hunting _with Oga Haruta?"

Rukia blinked. "Oh. Yes, I guess so."

"Why didn't you _tell _me?!"

"I try not to pay attention to his dumb ideas, it only encourages him."

Sunadori's cheeks colored. "You can't do anything about this?"

Rukia shrugged. "Takeru can take care of himself, even on only one and a half legs. And he knows what I'll do to him if he gets arrested again. I'm not worried."

"He doesn't really believe in ghosts, does he?" Sunadori asked.

"He believes in climbing around on old bridges in the middle of the night," Rukia shrugged. "Do you? Believe in ghosts, I mean?"

"Me!" Sunadori exclaimed. "Of course not! That's nonsense!"

"I just thought that might be what you were worried about. Oga getting eaten by ghosts, that is. A ghost would never eat Takeru, he's too rowdy."

Sunadori hmmphed. "I'm not _worried _about anything. Haruta can do what he wants. I suppose it's better that he goes out with someone who can call an ambulance when he inevitably breaks something." She clenched her jaw. "Aren't you done with those handouts for the meeting this afternoon?"

"They're on the printer, ma'am."

"Oh. Thank you, Satonaka."

"And ma'am?"

Sunadori _glared _at her.

"I am sure that if you wanted to go ghost hunting, the boys would be happy to have you along."

"HMMMPH!"

* * *

"Which one is your bad leg again?" Mitsuki asked from the open second story window.

Renji was half-hanging off a ladder, trying to reach a stubborn branch out of the gutter. "The one I'm not standing on right now," he grunted. He snagged it and pulled it loose. "Hey, can I ask you something?"

"You can ask," Mitsuki shrugged.

"How do you get to be a witch?"

"Looking to make a career change?"

"Just curious. Didn't know people could do magic."

"Mom would be pissed if I told you. She thinks you're precious and doesn't want anything to happen to you."

"I am precious and I also don't want anything to happen to me. I'm just curious. I am sure if I tried to do magic I would blow my own eyebrows off."

Mitsuki snorted. "In our case, there's a yokai somewhere in the family tree a few generations back. Demonblood isn't like normal genetics, it doesn't get weaker with subsequent generations, it just pops up strong in some of our family members and not others. It was very strong in me. I can tap into natural magic lines. Mom taught me some basics. I read a lot of books, too. Spent some time with nature spirits."

"'Can' or 'could'?" Renji asked, pulling out another wad of wet leaves.

"'Could', obviously. Ghosts can't do magic. Anyway, if you aren't born with magic, there are a few ways to get it. Making deals with spirits or demons, which might work out for you once, if you're clever and plan it well. Don't try to trick a fox spirit a second time, though, it won't go well for you."

"You said the lady who bound your spirit was a powerful witch. Did she have demonblood like you?"

"Ms. Nagato? No. Noooo. She was an _itako. _You have to be blind to become one, I think. She was in any case. Mom said she had to go through years of training as a child out near Mt. Osore. Then she went through a ritual where she couldn't eat or sleep and had to drench herself with cold water and pray until a spirit from the World of the Dead came and chose her for his otherworldly bride." Mitsuki told the whole thing in a spooky voice like a teen telling a ghost story. "It's possible that Mom made some of that up to scare me, back when I was alive. I think she was scared I would try to get Ms. Nagato to teach me stuff."

"Did she have students?"

"She didn't even have friends. She was mean as hell, and weird, too. She did occasionally tolerate one of Mom's witch friends, who used to say that she was already half living in the World of the Dead, whatever that means. I only met her once or twice before I died, but you could tell she was really powerful. She had this cold, nasty aura that made me wanna puke."

Renji had his arm down the drainpipe. There was something stuck down there. "So you can tell if a person can do magic or not? From their aura?"

"Sometimes. Could you tell my mom was a witch when you met her?"

"No."

"Mom has a little aura, not as strong as Ms. Nagato's. You're probably just limited to ghost stuff. Mom's ghost friend can't see magic auras either. Your spiritual reception is tuned to another channel, I guess."

"Can a normal person just do a spell, like if they found it in a book?"

Mitsuki shook her head. "Not a good spell. There are some cantrips that just about anyone could do." She tapped her chin. "Mom has some books about magical items. Wands or gems or stuff like that, that you can use to do magic. A witch can do more powerful spells with something like that. A normal person might be able to use it, but as you say, they would stand a good chance of blowing off their own eyebrows, or something much worse."

With a jerk, Renji wrenched his hand out of the drainpipe, holding a bedraggled former bird's nest. He frowned at it, and tossed it down onto the pile of refuse below. He clapped his hands together. "Gutter's clear."

"Thanks, Mr. Handyman." Mitsuki tilted her head to one side. "Not for nothing, but I do appreciate you doing some of these odd jobs for Mom. I do not need her up on that ladder."

"You're welcome," Renji said generously. "Thanks for keeping me company and telling me all that stuff."

Mitsuki sniffed. "Magic was the only thing I cared about when I was alive. It's… nice to be able to talk about it."

"I'll be back next week. We'll distract your mom with something and we can talk more. But I got to go home and get cleaned up."

"You got a hot date or something?"

Renji waggled his eyebrows. "As a matter of fact, I do."

* * *

It was Friday, and it was quitting time. Rukia felt a few flutters in her stomach as she headed off the fishery grounds. She was being pretty silly. It was fun to go out, she supposed, they certainly hadn't done a whole lot of it since they'd gotten here. But it was just Renji, whom she'd gone out with many times before, and with whom she had spent every day with for the past six weeks. She sighed. As if he had ever been "just Renji". As if she wasn't feeling her nerves slowly fray to pieces at his proximity. The last two weeks, since the New Year, had been so strange. He'd seemed more open, more like his usual self, more like her best friend. It was a relief, it was like being home again. But then she would lean into him and suddenly their closeness would be overwhelming, and they would spring apart like colliding billiard balls.

She had felt crummy for being cross with him the night before, but _he _had apologized to _her _at breakfast before she had a chance to say anything, and then asked her multiple times if she still felt like going out. Something was changing between them, and neither one of them knew how to keep it from happening.

Renji was waiting across the street from the main gate, and she felt her face stretch into a grin when she caught sight of him. He grinned back and her heart felt so grateful that he was always this glad to see her. "Hey, beautiful!" he greeted, pushing his sunglasses up onto his forehead.

"Hey, yourself," she replied.

He leaned in for a kiss, the way a husband would kiss his wife when he came to pick her up for a birthday dinner, but paused an inch from her lips. "How pretendy you feel like being tonight?" he asked very seriously and very quietly. "It's up to you. Don't wanna make you feel uncomfortable."

Did he know what he was offering? He looked into her eyes, patiently waiting for her to lead the way. She should demur, she knew. But it was her birthday and she was here, in the Living World, where it always seemed so easy to justify foolish decisions. "Let's be Tomoe and Takeru for tonight," she decided.

He seemed pleasantly surprised. "Happy Birthday, Tomoe." And then he kissed her. It was the kiss of a man who has been waiting all day to wish his wife happy birthday, and it took her breath away. It wasn't a long kiss, they were in public, after all, and then he slung his arm around her, fixed his glasses, and started down the street. "Any ideas for where you want to go?"

"Kimura in Accounting says there's a bar down in Green Point that has really good tempura," she suggested.

"I could take you somewhere nice," he offered.

"I don't wanna go somewhere nice," she countered. "I want to drink you under the table and eat a bunch of fried fish."

"Mmm," he replied, squeezing her shoulder. "You are the perfect woman."

A real husband would have added "I love you." It was okay. It was enough. Maybe Takeru was shy about saying it in public. He was a very pragmatic guy, she reminded herself, very down-to-earth, but he had a strange superstitious streak, and sometimes didn't like to say things out loud, as if that would break their magic.

Rukia was _very _good at pretending.

* * *

Lying had always come easily to Rukia. It took Renji a while to get the hang of it, but she had sold him on the merits of it, and he eventually caught on.

Life in Rukongai had been hard for them. Never enough to eat, rarely enough to drink. No one to protect them, to love them, to tell them little lies, to smooth the hardships of their life. If they took it upon themselves to make up their own stories from time to time, what of it?

Lies were very useful. Lies got you into places. Lies made people act against their own interests. Lies got you things like food and water and money.

And lies were fun.

When Rukia pretended to be the daughter of the man with the fruit stall, she could imagine that she had a father who watched over her while she slept and slipped her an overripe peach, too soft to sell, now and again. Renji used to tell people he was the head goon for the local gambling boss, and Rukia knew he liked the idea that he was strong enough to hold such a position, and that he could be trusted for his loyalty and good judgement.

So what if they were grown-ups now? They'd only been sent on this stupid mission because they were such tremendous bullshitters. It was her birthday, and if she wanted to spend it pretending to be someone else, and Renji was willing to play along, who the hell cared?

And so, for an evening, they were two happy people celebrating a special occasion. They reminisced about events that had never happened and told stories about people who didn't exist. They bumped knees under the table and flirted in the overblown, cheesy manner of newly married people. They held hands at the bus stop. On the ride out of town, Rukia leaned into Renji's side, and he wrapped one arm around her and rested his chin on her head.

Once they stepped off the bus, though, out under the stars, though, it got a little dodgier. When it was just the two of them, the line between _having some fun _and _fooling yourself _was a little too fine. The last thing Rukia wanted was a repeat of Christmas.

"You in any hurry to get home?" Renji asked.

"What do you have in mind?" Rukia asked cautiously.

"I was exploring the other day, and I found a cool place I wanted to show you. It's a nice evening and I thought maybe we could take a walk."

"Okay," she agreed, stuffing her hands in the pockets of her jacket. It _had _been a nice evening, and even if she had to be Rukia again, maybe, until they got home, she could hold on to some of those heady feelings of openly loving someone and being loved in return.

The wind was chilly off the water, but overall, it was quite a bit warmer than the previous week. Rukia was quite comfortable, although she suspected Renji was a little cold. He gave no sign of it, though. She took off her shoes and carried them, letting her toes sink in the frigid sand.

The ocean was calm, pushing gentle waves to lick at her feet. The woods crowded them from the other side, dark and shadowy. There were faint animal sounds, the hoot of an owl, the rustle of leaves.

"Here it is," he announced.

The shore dipped, creating a large, still tidal pool, ringed with rocks. The moonlight reflected off the water, painting everything in silvery light. Renji scrambled up onto the nearest rock, then offered her a hand up. They picked their way out to a flat rock big enough for both of them to sit on. "This _is _nice," Rukia agreed quietly.

They settled down, leaning against each other. She let him wrap one big, warm arm around her shoulder, and he let her snake her arm around his waist and rest her hand on his hip.

Back home, Rukia and Renji had a bit of a reputation for perpetuating an ongoing stream of mutual trash talk, but as long as no one else was around, they were actually quite content to enjoy each others' company in silence. After just a few minutes, though, Renji took a deep breath.

"Rukia," he said, "You, uh, told me not to buy you anything for your birthday," he started slowly. "But you didn't say I couldn't _give _you anything."

"What are you up to, weirdo?" she murmured.

"Hush, you." He looked down at her, and his gaze was so soft, it made her stomach drop. "I told you the other day that you deserve to hear how people feel about you, and I realized I was being a hypocrite, 'cause I haven't told you myself. And I wanted to fix that."

Rukia swallowed. Why couldn't he just be content with the lying? She wasn't sure her ungrateful heart could take an utterly sincere and heartfelt speech about what a great _friend _she was and how important their _friendship _was to him.

"You've been a part of my life for so long, I don't even remember what it was like before we met. We've had a lot of ups and downs. We've been together and we've been apart, but I feel like I've always carried a part of you with me." He reached out and tucked a strand of her hair behind one ear. "You're so good. I don't deserve you. I can't- I can't give you the things you should have, and I can't be the person you deserve to be with. But I'm _trying_. Knowing you… makes me better. Makes me work at being better." He closed his eyes. "And I thought I should tell you. It's hard, because I want to be good enough for you, but that may take a long time or it may never happen, and you deserve to hear nice things about yourself _now_, and that people care about you _now_. So, here it goes: I think you're great. I like you so, so much. I can't believe my luck, that you let me be in your life, and I am so grateful, every day, that you do."

Renji hadn't intended the next part, but in the moment, it seemed right. His hand slid up to cradle her cheek, and he leaned down.

Rukia couldn't breathe as Renji's lips came down to brush hers, soft as a ghost. Her brain desperately tried to parse what was happening. This wasn't pretending. This was real. And it's not like he'd never kissed her before. Come to think of it, they kind of kissed a lot, for friends. But this wasn't one of the awkward, surreptitious experiments of their youth. It wasn't like the playful friendship kisses he would occasionally plant on her cheek or the top of her head in moments of exuberance. It wasn't even like the feverish, desperate kisses they had exchanged on that alcohol-addled night during the Arrancar invasion. This was something new. He had never kissed her like this before.

Rukia felt like she must look like a frightened deer. Her heart was pounding in her ribcage. Was that… a speech about friendship? That could have been a speech about friendship. With kissing. Tender, romantic kissing. Renji was staring into her eyes, smiling a tiny, sad smile.

"I love you, Kuchiki Rukia."

It was not a speech about friendship.

"Are...are you sure?" she managed.

Renji gave a little ironic snort-laugh. "Yeah. I'm pretty sure."

Rukia closed her eyes, and rubbed her temples. There were too many thoughts in her head, all fighting to come out at once.

He took her hands from her head, and held them gently in his own. "I… I wouldn'ta told you this if I wasn't pretty sure you didn't feel… _something _back. But you don't gotta say anything. As long as you're okay with me loving you, that's all I need."

She opened her eyes, and gave him A Look.

"What kind of idiot wouldn't want you to love them?!" she exclaimed. "What do you take me for?" She breathed out an exasperated huff. "Look. You dummy. What are some things that I like?"

"Greasy food that you buy from a cart," he listed off affectionately. "Beer that tastes like death. Chappy. The Don Kanonji Show. Crashing into things on Ichigo's skateboard."

She squeezed his hands. "And are any of those things _good_?"

"No, they're awful," he smiled.

"Then _why _do you think you have _ever _needed to be better than you are for me to love you?" With that, she grabbed his jacket and pulled herself up on her knees to kiss him.

Renji was so surprised that he did a bad job of kissing her back. It was a mess of misaligned mouths and bumped noses and uncoordinated breathing, and neither one of them could stop for long enough to get any of it sorted out.

Finally, Rukia pushed herself away from him, an apologetic look on her face. "That came out kinda bad, I just realized. You're not awful at all, I think you're really great actually, and-"

"Rukia," Renji said calmly. "Shut up." And then he started kissing her again.

* * *

They piled in the front door, holding hands and snickering like two street children who had just stolen an entire watermelon.

It took Rukia less than a minute to toss her shoes in the corner, hang up her jacket, and rub her sandy feet down with a towel they kept near the door. Then she threw herself at Renji, who was sitting on the step, still trying to get his first boot off.

"Mmmmph!" he replied, waving his hands.

She settled her knees on either side of his legs, and started kissing him- his cheeks, his chin, his forehead, occasionally his mouth. She ran her hands up the sides of his neck, her fingers brushing up into the rough stubble on the back of his head.

Renji grabbed her firmly on one hip, so she wouldn't topple off as he continued to try to wrestle his boot off with the other hand. He was also trying to kiss her back, but mostly failing. It was too much multitasking, even for a man who once caught a swiftly-thrown woman one-handed because he needed to keep his sword at the ready.

She shoved his jacket off his shoulders onto the floor, and when he pulled his arms out of the sleeves, instead of going back to his shoes, he used one to pull her neck into kissing range, and the other to unwrap her gauzy scarf. Once he had clear access, he pressed open-mouthed kisses into the cords of her neck and shoulders. He pushed off her cardigan, letting his hands linger down the length of her arms.

Rukia had better things to do with her arms, though, namely getting his t-shirt off. Once it came free of his head, she twirled it around on her finger a time or two, and tossed it into the main part of the house, where it landed on a lamp.

"You're ridiculous," Renji mumbled against her lips, one hand occupied under her own shirt, the other exploring the back of her thigh beneath her bunched-up skirt.

"You need to get this thing some more tattoos," she mumbled back, trailing kisses over his chest, sliding her hands over his ribs and around to his back. Suddenly, she felt a weird sensation, a sudden release of pressure, and Renji was brandishing her bra in one hand. She was still wearing her shirt. She broke the kiss and sat back. "How did you do that?" she demanded.

"Sorcery," he replied, tossing it at the lamp, where it landed neatly on top of his shirt.

They looked at each other for a moment, assessing where they were. Renji very much wanted to reach back under her shirt, but there was something in her eyes that made him hesitate. "Is everything okay?" he asked.

She frowned, and fumbled in her pocket. "Not… not quite." She pulled out her soul removal glove, and yanked it onto her hand. Renji had no time to prepare when her hand slammed into his forehead, and his soul tumbled out of his gigai, skidding across the living room floor. He managed to sit up just in time to witness the charming sight of her slapping herself in the face in order to knock her own soul out, landing neatly on her feet. His sandals were much easier to get out of than those stupid boots, and he threw them at Rukia as she pulled off her own. She dodged, of course, stepped over the pile of crumpled gigais, and taking his hand in hers, pulled him to his feet. She took in his familiar face, his narrow brown eyes, the long spikes of his hair, the little scar on his chin, the black slashes of his horrible, stupid eyebrows. "This," she said. "This is what I want."

She led him to the bedroom. From now on, that shoji was staying open.

* * *

Sometimes Renji got insomnia. The first time it happened was the night before they left Inuzuri. His life was changing forever, and even though it was for the better, he couldn't let go of the life they had. He couldn't close his eyes and lose a precious second he had left of it.

It happened again at the end of that journey, the night before life stopped being the road and started being the Academy.

He didn't sleep for five nights running after she was adopted. He suspected Kira had been about ready to knock him unconscious with a bokken.

The night before he graduated and joined Fifth Company.

The night before he threw himself into the slobberknocker that qualified you for a place in Squad 11.

The night before the lieutenant's exam.

The night before he moved into the assistant captain's quarters of the Sixth Division.

The night after he locked Kuchiki Rukia in a Sixth Division holding cell, and quite a few of the nights thereafter.

On this night, when it was over, when they lay together, sweaty and exhausted, her arm thrown over his chest, their legs a hopeless tangle, his hair just everywhere, he fell asleep immediately.

* * *

In the morning, a beam of wan winter sunshine bathed the room in soft, colorless light.

Renji woke slowly, mostly from the chill. He almost pulled the covers over his shoulder and rolled over, when he realized the position he was in. He was on his back, and Rukia was on her stomach, their sides pressed together in a long line. She was propped up on her elbows, idly tracing the edges of the tattoos on his arm with her fingers. When she felt him stir, she turned her face to look at him, her eyes half-lidded behind the disheveled curtain of her hair.

"I didn't wake you up, did I?" she asked, her voice low and morning rough. He wanted that to be the first thing he heard every morning for the rest of his life.

"You don't have to work today, do you?" he asked.

"No, it's Saturday." He should have known that, but none of this felt real, none of this felt possible.

He swallowed, trying to clear the dryness from his own throat. His first instinct was to apologize, loudly and profusely. She didn't seem mad, though. In fact, her face was as peaceful as he could ever remember seeing it. Also, he wasn't actually sorry. He wasn't sorry at all.

"You, um, sleep well?"

"Very well," she replied.

"Everything, uh, feel okay?"

She raised one eyebrow at him. "Abarai," she said, not unkindly. "You are very sensitive and considerate. Now. Are you ready to go again or not?" She bumped his hipbone with her own.

She gave off a very charming screech as he flipped her over and rolled on top of her. "You asked for this," he told her with a wolfish grin.

"I did," she replied. "I very much did."

* * *

Rukia set up the coffee while he fixed breakfast. She still preferred tea, but she enjoyed the occasional cup of java, especially because you couldn't get it in Soul Society. Mostly, she liked grinding the beans. Renji hummed an off-key little tune of his own composition as he worked.

They sat down at the table, each with a bowl of eggy rice and a steaming mug. Rukia started shoving food in her mouth immediately, she was starving. Slowly, she realized that he was just holding his coffee mug and watching her, a fond, slightly wistful expression on his face.

"Why are you looking so schmoopy?" she asked. "Eat your egg before it goes cold."

"I love you," he replied simply.

Despite herself, Rukia's cheeks colored. She felt like her heart was going to break out of her rib cage and fly around the room.

"You have no idea how hard it's been not to tell you that a thousand times a day since we got here. Maybe since last summer. Maybe since forever. Anyway, I can now, and I ain't holding back."He thought for a moment and decided he wanted to say it again. "I love you." He finally picked up his chopsticks and started in on his egg.

Rukia looked at her own breakfast, and then back at him. "I… love you, too," she tried, experimentally, trying to figure out how the words felt in her mouth.

"You need some practice," he teased.

She took his words at face value, though. "I do. I do need practice. I don't know how to do this, Renji."

He looked at her, surprised. "It's just you and me, the same as we ever were. We just kiss now. And maybe have sex sometimes. If you want to keep doing that."

"I definitely want to keep doing that," she mumbled. "I've had sex before. I've never been in love with someone who was in love with me before." She swallowed. "It's a little scary."

He considered this. "Well, since I've only ever been in love with you, I guess me neither. Look, Rukia, I… I want this. I want to be with you. At least, I want to try. It is scary, you're right. But think how much harder this would be if we were back home."

"You mean Brother."

"I mean, _yes _, but not just him. There's the rest of your family, including the ones whose timecards I have to approve. There's our duties, our squads. There's my asshole friends who would give us grief at every turn. There's our doofus human friends who would be so happy for us we could never, ever break up." He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. "It's just you and me, here. We could give it a try, and if it doesn't work, we can go back to the way we were, and at least we would have skipped all that." He took a deep breath. "Or we don't have to. If you don't want to."

She flipped her hand over to grip his. "No. I want to try, too."

He smiled. It wasn't his big stupid grin, or the fond, guarded look he gave her sometimes. It was just a regular smile from a guy who wasn't hiding from her anymore. He was happy. "I'm glad."

She kissed his hand, and put it back on the table next to his bowl. "Now eat your stupid cold egg. I have decided that it's still my birthday and I have big plans to beat you up today. I refuse to change them just because you're my boyfriend now."

"Good," he replied, his mouth already half-full. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

~ end part 11


	13. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

* * *

It was the night of the second full moon since they had come to the World of the Living.

Rukia stood in the town center, in her spirit body, waiting.

They had elected to split up.

The Hollows came up from the sea. The smoke monster seemed to find a human soul for them to eat somewhere between town and the beach. How did it pick? They didn't know, but their best guess was that it started somewhere in town, and headed coastward until it found a convenient victim. So Rukia was starting in town and Renji was starting at the beach. If they could each slow down their respective monster, maybe they could buy the Onmitsukidou operatives back in Soul Society the time they needed.

Rukia glanced down at her phone. The tide was supposed to peak at 11:47. It was 11:55. The phone rang, startling her. It was Ozui. "Kuchiki," she answered.

"Those morons in Soul Society screwed the pooch. They scared off the perp."

"What does that mean?" Rukia exclaimed.

"It means no smoke monster tonight. Go check on Abarai, see if the Hollow has eaten him yet."

"On it." Rukia flash stepped back toward home, stopping periodically to see if she could pick up the Hollow. On the fourth stop, she caught it, loud and clear. She cut east, toward the woods, and on the fifth stop, she was deafened by a screeching howl. She could feel the raw edges of Renji's reiatsu, which meant he was working hard, since Urahara's gigais were otherwise pretty good at shielding that away.

Rukia drew her sword and plunged into the trees.

This month's Hollow looked nothing like the previous one. Rukia was very relieved at least, to see that it lacked razor sharp claws. It had a blobby, octopus-like body, armored by a huge, thick mask, and long, long tentacles that it used both for mobility and for attack. Currently, the tentacles were badly tangled around a number of trees.

"Hey, what's going on?" Renji yelled, jumping out of a tree, barely avoiding a swinging tentacle. "Try not to let them touch you, they got acid or something on 'em."

The Hollow screamed at him.

"Eh, shut up, you!" Renji shouted back.

"The smoke monster isn't going to show!" Rukia told him, hanging back. "Go ahead and kill it!"

"Damn, I was doing a really good job slowing this guy down, too. You wanna do it? You got your zanpakutou out."

"No way," Rukia shook her head. "You spent all that time practicing your hakuda. Go give 'im the business. I'll keep my sword out just in case, but I think you can handle it."

Renji nodded, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Okay. Okay, here goes." He crouched and pulled back his left arm. "LA MUERTA!" he bellowed, launching himself at the Hollow's main body.

"You can't just do that!" Rukia scolded. "I'm telling Chad!"

The Hollow's mask cracked under the blow, but didn't break. Renji followed up with a roundhouse kick, which deepened the crack.

By this time, the Hollow had gotten one of its tentacles untangled and whipped it at him. Just as the hit was about to land, Renji's back flared with kidou. The Hollow pulled back with a screech. With a powerful blow that Rukia could feel in her back teeth, Renji drove his elbow into the crack, and the mask finally split and dissolved into spirit particles.

"Whew," Renji sighed, wiping his hands over his face. He was steaming in the cold air. "That was more trouble than it was worth. Give me a sword any day."

"Did it get you?" Rukia asked. "You said it had acid."

"Oh, it burned some trees," Renji explained. "And I got some on my coat, which I dropped around here somewhere. So what the hell happened to the smoke monster?"

"Ozui said the team in Soul Society spooked it."

"That's garbage," Renji complained.

"They didn't get any readings on it in the nights leading up to the full moon," Rukia pointed out. "Maybe it'll come out tomorrow. Maybe it'll be desperate." She didn't need to point out that its non-full moon sojourns were usually too brief to catch it.

"Maybe," Renji agreed, shaking the snow out of his jacket. He pulled it on over his tattered shirt. A large portion of one side was melted away. He walked over to Rukia, and, putting his arm around her, kissed the top of her head. "Or maybe we're here for another month."

"That wouldn't be so bad," Rukia admitted, tilting her face up hopefully.

"No," he agreed, leaning down. "Not so bad at all."

* * *

It was too cold to be hanging around outside this late at night.

Ozui had told them they were being dumb, trying to catch the shadow monster eating a ghost, but Rukia really wanted another crack at it. Renji couldn't really disagree with her. They still didn't have any sort of viable way to fight it, so if they didn't even get to _see _it this month, it wouldn't be one more month on this mission, it would be two or three or more. He honestly wasn't sure how he felt about going home these days, but at the same time, his professional pride compelled him to make his best go of it, and he knew Rukia felt the same.

Renji was hanging out in one of the oldest parts of town, not all that far from their own house, actually. There was a ghost or demon or something that hung out here, walking up and down the cobblestones in those same awful clogs Urahara had, making a racket in the middle of the night. The thing was so old you couldn't even see it, just hear that maddening _clack clack clack _. They'd found this place on the ghost tour map the tattoo artist had given them, along with the very haunted hotel in the beach district where Rukia was cooling her heels. If the smoke monster showed, Renji was about ready to let old wooden-shoes just get eaten.

His phone buzzed. A text from Ozui, with a map. A reading! He squinted at the map. Oh. Oh, no.

Renji broke into a sprint.

* * *

Rukia had beaten him to the Kuwashima's house, but she wasn't in her gigai, and she couldn't get past the wards. She was alternating trying to hit them with various kidou and physically hurling herself up against the door and bouncing off again. She saw Renji coming just in time, and barely managed to get out of the way as he barreled into the door, crashing through wood and ward together.

It took him a minute to piece together what was going on. It was dark inside, even though the lights were on. The smoke creature was everywhere, choking his throat and stinging his eyes. Renji didn't actually have a plan. He had no idea what he was doing. This was Rukia's department. He stumbled over something, and knelt to find Mrs. Kuwashima's body on the floor. Suddenly, a second copy of her face swam out of the mist. "Oh, no," he gasped.

"Mr. Satonaka, you shouldn't be here," she grasped for him. "Get out of here."

It was becoming lighter, everything tinged green.

Screw it, he was ditching the gigai. Renji groped for his soul removal glove. He wasn't sure what good it was going to do, but he maybe he could hit the thing with Zabimaru.

The green light became blinding, and he realized that it wasn't the smoke monster.

It was Mitsuki.

She was chanting something that didn't sound like human words, and drawing the smoke monster to her. Her eyes were glowing brilliant green, and there was a lighter green aura about her. Suddenly, her spell hit a crescendo, and she dove into her ring, dragging the smoke monster with her.

There was still smoke in the room, but much less than before. It was clear enough now that Renji could see that Mrs. Kuwashima had been knocked clear of her body, but her soul chain was still in tact.

Suddenly, there was a loud _bang! _and an odor exactly like a shakkahou gone awry.

Mitsuki stood in the middle of the room, her normal faded coloring, looking very tired.

"Mitsuki!" Mrs. Kuwashima cried, running to her daughter, but getting caught short on her chain.

"Oh, Mom!" Mitsuki wailed, and ran the rest of the way back to embrace her mother. "I'm so sorry, Mom!" She finally noticed Renji. "You!" She pulled back from her mother, and examined the old woman's soul chain. "She's still attached. Can you put her back?"

"Yeah," Renji nodded. "I can. But first, what happened to the smoke monster? Did you- did you kill it?" That would be somewhat embarrassing, but to be honest, he would take it.

"I don't think so," Mitsuki admitted. "I think it was trying to absorb me. I couldn't do anything to it, I couldn't touch it. When I'm in my ring, I'm sort of part of the ring? I hauled it into the ring with me because I thought maybe it would be part of the ring, too, and then I… destroyed my ring. I think I hurt it a little, but then it just escaped back to wherever it came from." She frowned sadly.

Renji's eyes trailed down her chain. The end was broken. "Oh."

Everyone was quiet.

Well, everyone except Rukia, who was still shouting and banging on the ward.

Renji cursed. "Hey, uh, Tomoe?" he called. "Everyone's, um, pretty okay. Not in danger. Just chill out, okay?"

"Okay!" her voice carried back.

"I didn't know you could still cast spells," Mrs. Kuwashima said softly.

"I didn't either," Mitsuki sighed. "I think I used up some of this chain doing it. It seems like it used to be a lot longer." She met Renji's eyes. "You'll clean me up after you get Mom back in her body, right?"

"If you're ready." He surveyed her chain. "You probably have another few days if you want 'em."

"What's going on?" Mrs. Kuwashima asked, looking back and forth between Renji and Misuki, the usual sensible confidence gone from her voice.

Mitsuki smirked at Renji. "He's a Soul Reaper, Mom. Those wards were garbage."

"Nah," Renji shook his head. "The wards work good, actually. Too good. I'm, uh, sort of in an artificial body right now. I can use it to force my way in. Tomoe's not wearin' hers, and that's why she's stuck outside. Here, Mrs. Kuwashima, let's get you back in, it's not good for you to be outta your body too long."

A few moments later, she took a deep breath and sat up. "Ah, that was very unpleasant." She stabbed Renji in the chest with her index finger. "Now, you! Explain yourself! Are you here after my Mitsuki?"

Renji shook his head sadly. "Not at all. I'm actually here chasing down that smoke thing, but it's provin' pretty hard to catch. I think Mitsuki's given me an idea, though."

Mitsuki blinked, then looked pleased.

"I'm sorry this happened. I'm sorry we didn't catch it before tonight."

"Why did you come to my house?" Mrs. Kuwashima asked. There was pain in her voice.

Renji gave her a small smile. "'Cause I don't do a lot of cooking in the afterlife and I didn't know how, and I didn't want Tomoe to starve. And you seemed nice, and I liked helping you out."

She stared at him. "Really?"

"Yeah. Really."

Mrs. Kuwashima squeezed his hand, then turned to her daughter. "Mitsuki. You've been ready to go for a long time, haven't you?"

Mitsuki made a big frown. "I'm sorry, Ma. I know… I know why you saved me. But I've been dead for so long. I'm ready."

Mrs. Kuwashima nodded. "I knew. I Saw that I wasn't going to be able to keep you much longer. I'll… I'll be okay."

Mitsuki elbowed Renji. "You keep visiting her, okay? Help her plan the garden. And get that smoke thing outta my town."

"Doin' my best," he promised.

"So, how does this work? You got a scythe or something?"

"A sword, actually, but we don't use the business end, unless you start getting rowdy. Let's go outside, Tomoe'll take care of you."

They all filed outside. Rukia's eyes scanned everyone frantically, and her gaze softened when she saw Mitsuki's chain.

"We need a konsou," Renji said softly.

Rukia nodded curtly.

"You look different," Mitsuki informed her. She surveyed Renji. "That's not what you really look like, either, is it?"

"Naw, I'm much better looking than this."

Rukia smirked.

"What's it like over there?" Mitsuki asked.

Rukia took a deep breath. She usually lied to ghosts, told them how nice Soul Society was. Konsou destroyed memories anyway, they wouldn't even remember the fib.

"There's nice parts and there's rotten parts," Renji said, matter-of-factly. "But even in the rottenest parts, you can still find some good people. The best people." He glanced meaningfully at Rukia. "You won't remember anything about your life. You won't remember me tellin' you this. I don't know if you'll still have your magic on the other side. You might get a different kind of magic instead, or none at all."

Mitsuki's eyes were glued to Sode no Shirayuki, whom Rukia had drawn. "If I get magic, can I be a Soul Reaper?"

"Just head for the center," Renji replied, as Rukia pressed the hilt of her sword into Mitsuki's forehead.

* * *

It felt strange to be standing at the front door of Block 12, Number 3, but the back door was boarded up, so here he was.

Mrs. Kuwashima answered his knock, looking much older than usual.

"Hi," Renji said quietly, holding out the tupperware in his hands. "I brought you some curry."

She blinked at him.

"It was my understanding that it was proper to bring food to people who have… had a loss. Did I get it wrong?"

Her face cracked into a brittle laugh. "Oh, sport. Thanks for coming by. You want to come in?"

"If… if you want me to. I don't blame you for bein' mad at me."

"I'm glad you came," she replied, evading his concern. "It's too quiet here."

"Here, can you hold the curry while I come in? I kinda have to get a running start."

"I broke the wards," she explained.

"Oh," Renji said softly. "I can bring it in myself, then, I guess."

"Let's talk business," Mrs. Kuwashima suggested as he gingerly stepped through the now-ordinary doorway.

"Business?"

"You said that you're here to catch that smoke creature, yes?"

"Basically, yes."

"I want to help."

He frowned. "Look, Mrs. Kuwashima, I know I look like an ordinary schlub, but I'm actually a combat specialist." Not that it would do much good. "And, ah, Tomoe is very skilled at shinigami magic. I mean, she's a formidable fighter, also. She's good at everything, really."

Mrs. Kuwashima had raised one eyebrow. "Look, buddy, I wasn't offering to fight the thing for you. A few weeks ago, you asked me to introduce you to my death witch friend. I figured that was somehow related."

"Oh! Oh, yes. There's a human involved, too, you see. Someone casting spells, someone who maybe carries the smoke monster around in his body. If we could find that person, or people…"

She nodded. "I know a lot of the magic users in this town, and perhaps I can scry some information for you, as well. I called Asuga, the death witch, and she's free tomorrow afternoon. I honestly don't know how much help she'll be. She can see the dead, but otherwise, she's a huge fraud. She can't contact the other side, she can't do any magic, she can just see and talk to them. She makes her living on account of her acting skills, which, to be fair, are pretty good."

"It's worth a try, I think" Renji agreed. "I really appreciate this."

"You kill that thing," Mrs. Kuwashima warned. "Or banish it, or take it back to the spirit world, or whatever, as long as you get it out of my town. That's all the thanks I want." She frowned thoughtfully. "Well. I would also like you to fix my back door."

* * *

Renji pulled his scarf up over his nose, letting his breath warm the bottom half of his face. It was _cold _out here. Rukia scooted a little closer, and rubbed her hand over his back.

They were sitting on the hill that overlooked the little block of houses near the bus stop where Mrs. Kuwashima lived. They didn't think it was highly likely that the smoke monster would return to the same place a second night in a row, especially since Mitsuki was gone, but Renji didn't want to take any chances, and it wasn't like they had any better guesses.

"The next time we get sent on an Onmitsukidou mission, let's demand that they send us somewhere tropical," he grumbled.

"If it means you'll go around with your shirt off, I'm in," Rukia winked at him.

She used to tease him by saying stuff like that, but now there was a flirty lilt to her voice, and a naughty look in her eye that hit him right in the pit of his stomach. Renji had thought he was an expert on being in love with Kuchiki Rukia, but he was quickly learning that being in love with a Kuchiki Rukia _who loved him back _was an entirely new course of study.

Suddenly, their phones both lit up with an incoming text.

Wordlessly, Renji's hand shot out, and Rukia tumbled out of her gigai. She took one last squint at the map on the display, and took off into shunpou.

Renji frowned at it. It was much too far away. He would never make it there before the smoke monster disappeared again. In all likelihood, Rukia wouldn't either. He decided to stick to his post unless Rukia called for back-up. He didn't particularly want to abandon Rukia's gigai, either.

The smoke monster must be getting desperate. It had missed its Hollow, and he didn't think it had been able to get much of anything from Mitsuki. It didn't usually come out two nights running after the full moon.

He tilted his head at the map. He'd been to that part of town recently. What was there? He racked his brain for a moment, and when he remembered, his blood ran cold.

Five minutes passed, and his phone rang. "'Sup?"

"Missed it again," Rukia sighed. "Hey, did you, uh, take a look at the map location?"

"You're at an old stone bridge, aren't you?"

"This is where you went ghost hunting the other week, isn't it?"

"Yuuuuup."

"And you said there was a ghost here?"

"She was real salty. If you try to go underneath or make a bunch of noise, she'll surely come out and yell at you."

"There are no ghosts here, Renji."

"Yeah. That's what I was afraid of."

* * *

Mrs. Shiina was about as far away on the witch spectrum as you could get from Mrs. Kuwashima. She was very tall, with long white hair arranged in a very impractical style. She wore voluminous black robes, and a lot of jewelry.

"Hello, darling," she greeted Mrs. Kuwashima, kissing her on the cheek. "How are you holding up?"

"I'm fine," Mrs. Kuwashima waved off. "I would prefer not to talk about it, actually. I brought my young man over to fix your stuck door."

Renji frowned. No one had mentioned that part. He guessed he was going to become an expert on fixing doors.

"Oh, lovely! It opens just fine, but it's such a bother to get closed again."

"He has some questions for you first, though."

Mrs. Shiina looked him up and down. "Taiki said you can see spirits."

"Uh, yeah," he said, trying to affect a modest demeanor.

"It is a great gift, being able to communicate with the afterlife! You see-"

"Can we skip this part? My questions are actually pretty specific."

She raised an eyebrow.

"I live out in the woods south of Mrs. Kuwashima's place, not too far from the beach. I see a lot of ghosts down there, 'specially the guys who died in that shipwreck a few years back."

"Ah, yes, those woods are quite haunted."

"Also, a couple of times now, on the full moon, there's some real nasty monster comes trampin' up from the sea."

"Yes, those are called Hollows," Mrs. Shiina informed him mysteriously. "Have you noticed the hole, usually in their chest? It represents their missing hearts."

"Yeah, real spooky-like," Renji tried to keep things moving.

"Angry ghosts eventually develop into them. We don't get many around here, the conditions aren't conducive to them."

"There's another thing I found down there, too. There's a place on the beach you can only get to at low tide. It's got real bad...vibes, I guess. I was wonderin' if maybe someone was callin' up the monsters with magic."

Mrs. Shiina made a stern face. "Death magic is very dangerous. Few are able to do it." She rubbed her chin, and her tone changed abruptly from mysterious and spooky to I-told-you-so. "I knew this would happen."

Mrs. Kuwashima coughed and leaned forward. "Come again?"

"You remember Nagato Mio, don't you Taiki?"

"Of course I remember her, she's the one who preserved my daughter's spirit!"

"Ms. Nagato was an _itako _\- a spiritual medium," Mrs. Shiina explained for Renji's benefit. Even though he'd gotten a lot of this from Mitsuki, it could be useful to get it again from a different source. "She was born blind, and her family sent her off to go through special training. She didn't like to talk about the details, but it ended with her being bound to a patron spirit, which allowed her to communicate with the dead and to perform death magic."

"You think she coulda summoned monsters?"

"I am sure she _could _have. She wasn't like us- she didn't perform her magic for tourists just to make a living. She lived by herself, kept to herself. Occasionally, people would go to her, and she would perform rituals for them. Some people she would turn away. Others she would help. I don't know why. I knew her about as well as anyone. She needed an assistant sometimes, and I was well-enough qualified. She was very, very careful with her magic. Always afraid of things slipping through."

"Where is she now?" Renji asked.

"Oh, she died a few years back," Mrs. Shiina waved. "But. She had a few magical items- a bamboo tube that she could trap animal spirits in. A koto that she used in her ceremonies. And a box that she never opened. It was related somehow to her patron spirit." Mrs. Shiina sighed. "She asked me that, when she died, I would burn all these things."

Mrs. Kuwashima glared at her. "You didn't burn them, did you, Asuga?" she asked flatly.

"I was thwarted by lawyers, Taiki! She still had family, I guess, and all her things went to a nephew. It took me a while to get his information, and by the time I managed to find him to try and convince him to give them to me, he had already sold them!"

"Sold them?" Renji grimaced. "Who would want stuff like that?"

"People are very stupid about magic," Mrs. Shiina agreed. "Perhaps someone thought they would be able to talk to the dead with them. But they're like an ungrounded wire- without a powerful medium to control them, a person who tried to use them would be just as likely to be possessed by something from the other side."

Renji and Mrs. Kuwashima blinked at her.

"Or, more likely, it just wouldn't work."

"Asuga," Mrs. Kuwashima said sternly. "Why aren't you more worried about this?"

"Well, I used to be. Mr. Satonaka mentioned that shipwreck. That was what, a year or so after Ms. Nagato passed? I was very worried at the time, seemed very unnatural. But then nothing else followed and… you know how these things are. What was I supposed to do about it, anyway?"

She looked back and forth from Renji to Mrs. Kuwashima, who were both Judging Her.

"Maybe we should go see about that door, eh?"

* * *

Rukia slammed open the door to the storage room.

She made a beeline for the Oga boxes, and methodically began dumping them onto the floor. There had to be something here. Sunadori said he had collected magic stuff. Mrs. Kuwashima's witch friend said that someone had bought Nagato Mio's witching tools. They had to be connected.

Mixed in among the more ordinary books were some full of spells or strange writing. A few were strangely heavy or tingled to the touch. Rukia kicked herself for missing this earlier.

There were about four boxes worth of logs, and at the back of one of them, she found a stack of several years worth of daily planners. Captain Oga had written liberally in these- they were stuffed with post-its and news clippings, meeting reminders and notes and phone numbers scrawled all over the pages. Rukia found the one for seven years previous, and flipped to the date of Nagato's death, then carefully started moving forward. She didn't have to go far. Three days afterward, a yellowed clipping of Nagato's obituary had been paperclipped to the page. Scrawled next to it was a phone number, and a time and date for the following week, along with a price.

"Got you, you butthead," Rukia mumbled.

* * *

"We got a care package from Tessai in the mail today," Renji noted at dinnertime, gesturing to a small pile of items at the other end of the table. "A bunch of his own notes about the way human magic works. A copy of 'War Between the Oak and the River'. Some friggin' probiotic tea. I threw that right in the garbage, that stuff will _mess you up_."

Rukia eyed the book suspiciously. It appeared to be thicker than it was wide. "What are we supposed to do with _that_? Throw it at the Hollow?"

"He wrote a ton of notes in it. It's all kidou nerd stuff, for you."

Rukia groaned.

"It's a good book," he shrugged.

"Speaking of magical books," Rukia frowned, and told him about what she had found in the storage room at work.

Renji listened carefully, nodding along.

"We need to talk about your buddy, Oga," she finished.

"I know," he sighed. "It's not looking good for him, is it?"

"I know you like him, but-"

"It's not that I like him! I mean, I do like him. I just can't figure out his game. He doesn't have a whiff of magic about him. If he is some dark human wizard, why would he bother putting on a doofus act to hang out with me? Do you think he's seen through my cover?"

Rukia shook her head. "I don't know." She chewed her dinner contemplatively. "We've always assumed that the human- whoever it is- let the shadow monster ride around inside him. But what if it's full-bore possessing him? What if he doesn't even _know?"_

Renji nodded slowly. "Mrs. Shiina said something about gettin' possessed. I dunno. I've seen plenty of Hollows that possessed people, and it's always just bodily control. Using someone like a puppet. You think this thing could possess a human so completely they could _cast magic _through them? That's crazy."

"I certainly haven't ever heard of such a thing," Rukia concurred. "But the book used a fancy word for it- convolving. The human definition is a fancy math thing about combining signals. I don't know what it means magically, but it certainly sounds more involved than just riding around like a passenger. Maybe Tessai says something more about it in his notes."

"You think I should stop hanging out with him?" Renji asked, hesitantly.

"Heck, no! If anything, you should spend _more _time with him," Rukia scolded. "Keep an eye on him. Try to figure out his deal."

Renji let out the breath he had been holding. "Good. I was worried, now that you love me, you might start trying to talk me out of some of my more boneheaded ideas."

Rukia shrugged. "That would leave me open to getting talked out of _my _more boneheaded ideas. Just be careful, y'know. If you get in too deep, I _will _come rescue you."

He snorted. "Like that's anything new."

* * *

It was a very bad night for ghost-hunting, but a very good night for drinking warm sake.

Oga had wanted to cancel, but Renji convinced him to meet up at a bar instead, and they could do some planning. Right now, Oga had a map of Kurage Bay spread out on the table, and was explaining some of his past exploits.

"You live near here, right?" Oga asked, pointing to the woods near their house. "There was an oak tree here where I got a very serious feeling of _not being wanted_."

Renji had also gotten a very serious feeling of _not being wanted _near that oak tree, but it was because a ghost had been screaming "Go away, you terrible man, you are not wanted!" at him.

"I saw a ghost there once or twice," he threw out some bait. "When we first moved in. She disappeared sometime around Christmas. Haven't seen her since."

Oga's brow creased. "Hmm. Was she an old ghost or a new ghost?"

"Pretty old, I think. Old-fashioned clothes and hairstyle."

"New ghosts often hang around for a short period and then move on. A ghost that old tends to stick around, unless something happens to them."

"What sort of thing happens to a ghost? They're a ghost, they can't get hit by a car or get offed by the yakuza," Renji asked, pretending to be confused. There were at least three other spots on Oga's map that he had marked on his own map at home, places where the smoke monster had been spotted on days surrounding the full moon.

"Well, according to the literature," (this was one of Oga's favorite expressions), "the ghost could have been sent to the afterlife, like by one of the people in black that you met. Have you seen any of them since?"

"Just that one time," Renji lied.

"I've also read that angry, violent ghosts can attack other ghosts," Oga went on. "I've always been a little skeptical of that. I mean, ghosts are still basically people-shaped, right? I guess a ghost could strangle another ghost, maybe? But ghosts don't breathe. Fist fight? I don't know. Maybe I'm missing something."

"I like the idea of a ghost punching another ghost," Renji grinned. "Oh, oh, don't ghost pirates get, like, ghost swords?"

"Yeah, but ghost pirates should be out on the high seas, on their doomed ships, not walking around cities beating up people who died in car wrecks."

"If they were shipwrecked, they might wander the shores," Renji suggested.

Oga became quiet. Renji realized his mistake immediately, except that he had to pretend that he didn't, because he wasn't supposed to have that information.

"Hey, what's wrong?"

"Uh, just… my dad died in a shipwreck."

"Aw, jeez, I'm sorry." He cocked his head to one side. "I thought you said he had cancer."

"Yeah. He did. But a bad storm at sea got him first."

The awkwardness hung in the air for a minute.

"Hey, Oga," Renji probed. "Don't you ever want to do something that's… not… ghost-hunting? I mean, it must remind you of your dad an awful lot."

Oga rearranged some of the post-it notes stuck to the map. "Sometimes. Yes, actually. But when I try to do other things, I can't stop thinking about it. It's like a compulsion. Like a voice in my head that wants me to keep doing it."

Indeed.

Tessai's notes had included a kidou cantrip for visualizing human magical auras. Renji had tested it on Mrs. Kuwashima, who threw off a pale greenish-yellow glow, about a foot deep. There were other humans in the bar who had a few flickers, and one of the barbacks had a thin but distinct pink outline, but Oga gave off zilch. At least he had when they first arrived. When he mentioned the voices, a few tiny wisps of black and green fluttered around him. Renji wouldn't have even noticed if he hadn't been paying close attention.

Oga took a drink of sake. "It's really nice of you to be here, Satonaka. Most of my friends think I'm a weirdo and can't stand me. Even Yui… Yui was my best friend growing up. You wouldn't believe how close we were."

Renji thought he might have an idea.

"Anyway, she'll answer my texts, but she won't hang out. It's for the best I think. I think if we hung out, she would get sick of me almost immediately."

Renji kicked back his own sake. "I also had some times when I wasn't fit for polite company. I was lucky to make some horrible, disgusting friends in the service who put up with me and helped pull me out of it. I'm happy to try to do the same for you. Look, we can ghost-hunt sometimes, but maybe let's try to do other things, too, once in a while, okay? Just give it a try?"

"Maybe," Oga replied hesitantly.

It wasn't that Renji _liked _counseling depressed people in bars, it was just a thing that happened to him. But in this case, he had a feeling all the freelance pub therapy in the world wasn't going to do Oga so much good as getting this stupid smoke monster exorcised from his soul.

But, in the meantime… "I think we're going to need more sake."

* * *

Renji backpedaled, his superior reach the only thing keeping Rukia at bay. In a move of desperation, he swung his right arm at her, trying, and once again, failing to focus his reiatsu by venting his north reiryoku duct. Rukia redirected his blow and took advantage of his overbalance to flip him on the floor.

He lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling until her face swam into view above him.

"Gotcha," she grinned slyly.

Rukia had never given much attention to hakuda. When she had learned the basics in the Academy, she'd had to depend on her body's natural size and strength, which meant that she spent most of her time being thrown into the mat, and had considered herself a lost cause. She'd used a little of what she remembered of it when she lost her powers, and found it more useful than she had expected. Then, Yoruichi's lectures about controlling the reiatsu in her arms and legs had just clicked. At first, sparring with Renji had been pretty interesting- her precision against his power. But the more she fought with him, the more she observed how he flooded every muscle and sinew with power. Observation had turned to imitation, and now she was trashing him nine times out of ten.

"How are you so good at this?," he groaned.

"You're doing fine," she said, helping him up. "You smashed that Hollow."

"But you're _better_," he grumped.

"Is that so bad?" she asked loftily. "To be better than you at one little thing?"

He kissed her on the forehead on his way up. "You're better than me at most things, these days. You'll be surpassing me at zanjutsu next. And it's not bad at all, it's great."

Her cheeks colored. "Sode no Shirayuki told me that your reiatsu was stronger than mine, but harder to control."

"I'm not sure I like you talking about me behind my back," he teased.

She grinned. "Speaking of doing things behind your back, can I try something?"

He raised an eyebrow, trying to look sexy. "Will I like it?"

"Probably not!" she chirped, dancing around behind his back. "Shoot, bend your knees more...more...okay."

"What are we doing?" he asked, trying to look behind him.

"Get in a left attack stance, but relax your hakusui. I don't want you generating any power."

"Okay…" Renji agreed hesitantly. "What exactly are we-"

Rukia abruptly shoved a stream of her own reiatsu through his saketsu. There was a jarring sensation as their reiatsu jumped into synchronization.

"Can you control it?" Rukia asked. "Use your left arm."

Renji flexed his arm a few times. The tame little flame at his fist danced and reshaped at the slightest nudge. "This is so easy," he murmured. "Hey, this is pretty awkward, can you just climb up on my back, the way Zaraki carries Yachiru around?"

"How is this _not _awkward?" Rukia grumbled, clambering up on his back. "Oh," she commented, once he had straightened up. "It's kinda fun to be up here."

"Hold on, here we go!" he warned her, and charged a nearby practice dummy. He slammed his fist into it, and some straw flew out. Not quite as much damage as he could inflict on his own, but still respectable.

"Loosen up your vents, and hit it again," Rukia instructed.

This time, he took care of the physical swing, and Rukia handled metering the spiritual energy. Not quite as good as the previous time, but again, not too shabby.

"Now, the right," Rukia suggested.

Ah. "We ain't doing this in a real fight," he informed her.

"I just want to see if I can!"

"Okay! Here goes!" The dummy rocked to the side. "Heyooo!" Renji crowed. "Good job, Ru, you're better at doing hakuda with my body than I am!"

"Pbbt. One more try, okay? This time, go ahead and use your own reiatsu."

Renji frowned. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, yeah, try it."

His body flamed to life with his own swirling, misbehaving reiatsu. But Rukia's was still there, underneath, laminar and focused, and his own seemed to be pulled to it, like water clinging to the back of a spoon. He aimed one more crushing hook at the dummy. It exploded, the wooden backbone cracking in half. "Well," he said. "That's something, innit?"

* * *

Renji was usually in the kitchen when Rukia got home, but today, he greeted her in the entryway. It was just as well, she was _very _happy to see him. She pulled him down to her and pressed her lips to his, exhaling her long day into him. Her hand crept around his waist and slid up under his shirt, her fingers lightly raking up his back. He smelled faintly of soy sauce and ginger, but she wasn't particularly interested in dinner.

"This is very nice," Renji noted, pulling back from her reluctantly. "But I came out here to tell you that we have visitors."

Wrinkling her nose, Rukia glanced around the entry. There weren't any extra pairs of shoes. "Who?"

"You better come in and see."

Sode no Shirayuki had come in human form, this time, but obviously the fashion of the Living World eluded her. She was wearing a cabled fisherman's sweater of thick wool with a pair of shorts and turquoise knee socks printed with snowmen. Pulled down around her ears was the same red knit cap she'd had out in the snowstorm. She was sitting on the couch, with her feet propped up on Zabimaru's broad, furry back. Both parts of the nue were asleep, and snoring in unison.

"Hello," Rukia greeted her zanpakutou tentatively. "Did you come for dinner?"

"No, thank you, Renji made us cookies earlier," Sode no Shirayuki answered pleasantly.

"They've been here since lunchtime," Renji said out of the side of his mouth.

"Rukia," Sode no Shirayuki began, putting her hands on her knees. "Do you remember what I told you out in the snowstorm? About using a zanpakutou to bind your smoke creature?"

"That is was a bad idea? That Renji couldn't and I shouldn't?"

Sode no Shirayuki smiled, her eyes glistening like ice. "Things have changed."

~ end part 12


	14. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

* * *

It was tight down in the practice room, with all four of them, especially Zabimaru, who was the size of a small pony.

"The principle is very straightforward," Sode no Shirayuki explained. "We will lay the binding spell on your sword ahead of time, and when you next release into shikai, the binding is activated."

"You will stab the creature with our sealed form," Zabimaru growled, "and when you release, we will sink our teeth into it and hold it fast."

"They are really a very good sword for this sort of thing," Sode no Shirayuki agreed.

"Are you going to be able to hold onto this monster?" Rukia asked skeptically. "Nothing I did even seemed to touch it."

"I been thinkin' about this," Renji said slowly. "What if we could bind it _to _something? Mitsuki wasn't quite able to bind it to her ring, but she was able to affect it at least a little."

"That is a very interesting idea," Sode no Shirayuki pondered.

"It walks around in human flesh, does it not?" Zabimaru's snake mouth suggested. "Could you bind it to that body?"

Renji shook his head. "No, no, Oga- assuming it is Oga- isn't a meatsack, he's a person. I ain't stabbin' him if I can help it."

"Do we need to come up with something right now?" Rukia asked. "Can we take some time to think about it?"

"There is no rush, the principle is the same either way," Sode no Shirayuki went on. "Speaking of which, on the positive side, it is very likely that Zabimaru is strong enough to hold the beast."

"Of course we are!" Zabimaru announced.

"The problem is keeping Zabimaru bound to Renji's sword, and by extension, bound to Renji."

"Come again?" Renji asked.

Sode no Shirayuki rolled her lips. "Normally, yours is the dominant soul of your partnership. But it's possible that the spirit you are trying to bind might exert enough force to pull you inside out."

"What?" Rukia exclaimed. "You did not mention that earlier."

"You will have to anchor him," the ice spirit went on.

"What does that mean, 'pulled inside out'?" Renji managed.

"It means you would lose your corporeal form and exist as part of our subconscious," the baboon head rumbled.

"Assuming it doesn't just kill all three of you outright," Sode no Shirayuki added helpfully.

"This seems like a terrible idea," Renji announced.

"Yeah, it's not sounding good," Rukia backed him up.

"This would only happen because Zabimaru is really terribly strong," Sode no Shirayuki pointed out. "Renji only ever uses a very small part of their power. They are well-suited for this. And the three of us working together should be more than an adequate counterbalance."

"The three of us?" Renji repeated.

"Rukia, you, and I."

"Look, this is weird as hell," Renji scowled. "Zanpakutou don't work together. And why are you helpin' us so much, anyway?"

Sode no Shirayuki eyed Zabimaru. "We have been in the Living World too long. It is confusing and disordered here. We are changing. We do not like it."

Zabimaru stretched, joints popping. "We are all running together and she hates it. We do not mind. We will be stronger if we fight together. It will be glorious. If we have to put up with her stupid planning and practicing to do so, it will be worth it."

"What do you mean, you're running together?" Rukia pressed.

"We will be fine once we return to Soul Society," Sode no Shirayuki dismissed. "Do not worry yourselves over it."

Renji did not miss Zabimaru rolling their eyes at this. Zabimaru was a habitual liar, but they were lazy and obvious about it. They would tell Renji any old thing, whether it made sense or not, no matter if it was consistent with things they had told him previously. Rukia had always been a much better liar than Renji. He suspected that her zanpakutou was a better liar than his, as well.

"Let us focus on the task at hand, the binding," Sode no Shirayuki went on. "Of course, for the purposes of practicing, I will not be able to assist."

"Why not?" Rukia asked, sounding disappointed.

"Because if you are to practice, you are going to need a spirit to bind."

* * *

Rukia had a hot yam in one hand, a cold beer in the other, and Renji's arms around her. She was very, very happy.

It was a fairly cold Friday evening, but still a little above freezing, and they'd gotten the fire roaring merrily in the refurbished fire pit. They'd never replaced the beach chair the Hollow had stepped on, so Renji was sitting in the remaining one, and Rukia sat sideways in his lap. It was unclear how long the ancient chair was going to be able to withstand this kind of abuse, but it was holding for now.

"Gimme a bite of your yam," Renji demanded. "Since it's your fault my hands are too full for me to have my own."

"Gimme a smooch first," she demanded back.

He accepted her terms, and paid up with an open-mouthed kiss, long and lazy, a good Friday night campfire kind of kiss.

"I like this," she said, when they parted.

"What, bribing me with food for kisses?" he asked, biting off an enormous chunk of sweet potato.

"That was too big a bite!" she protested.

"There's a whole pile of 'em! If Yoruichi were here, we couldn't eat all those yams!" He tightened his arms around her hips. "But here's a bonus hug, if that'll shut you up."

"I will never shut up, you know that," she replied, flashing him her favorite smug smile. "But this is what I like. Being together. I think…" She lowered her voice to a whisper. "I think this might be working. What do you think?"

Renji grinned at her absurd attempts at discretion. "Rukia, this week was _terrible_." His grin softened into a fond smile. "And I'm so glad I had you to help me get through it. I think it is working. And I _know _that I love you more than even I thought was possible."

Contented, she nestled her head into his shoulder. He was quiet for a long time, somewhat uncharacteristically. "What are you thinking about?" she finally asked.

He took a deep breath, and she felt his chest expand under her. "It's… it's weird. For so long...for forever, it feels like... I've had some plan or another that I've been working on. I've always known what's next, what I'm working toward. For you, I mean, always for you. And now I have you, right here in my arms, and I feel so happy, but also… lost? I have no idea what's going to happen when we go back to Soul Society. With us, I mean. Assuming we go back to Soul Society."

Rukia leaned precariously out of the chair to grab his beer off the ground and handed it to him. "Too much thinking, Abarai. Not enough beer."

He sighed. "You're probably right."

She sat up a little and took a long drink of her own. "Why do you always make these long, elaborate plans? They never work. Something always breaks at the last minute. We'll figure something out when we get there."

He smiled fondly at her. "You're the improviser, Kuchiki. I'm hopeless without you."

She suddenly felt overcome with gratitude toward him, decades of old gratitude that she had always been too embarrassed to put into words. "I shouldn't trash your plans. I'm hopeless without you, too. I don't think I've ever told you this, but my life was a mess before I met you. Sleeping in gutters. Getting caught up in the worst situations and making it out by the skin of my teeth. Sometimes not even. What we had...it wasn't the best life, but it was because of you that we _ever _had a roof over our heads or food to eat."

He kissed her hair. "Because of _us_. My plans used to break all the time, like you said, before you showed up. But you could always save them with your chaotic brilliance. Pull something out at the last second, make it work."

"I don't think anything has changed, honestly," she admitted. "I mean, if you hadn't busted your butt for all those years to become my brother's lieutenant, we'd still be apart."

"Maybe. But if you didn't demand that I jump out of trees with you and let you ride around on my bankai, I'd still be trying to make appointments with your butler to come see you for formal tea."

Rukia laughed out loud. It was too much, the idea of him showing up at the front door, in his formal best, trying to wheedle an audience out of one of Byakuya's retainers. "You were going to try to _court _me?"

Renji shook his head. "I am unbelievably glad we didn't have to go down that route."

She kissed the side of his jaw. "Would you have sent me some sappy poetry?"

"I would have made Kira write it for me."

"I don't want Kira's _good _poetry. I want to hear myself compared to a sweet potato, a girl worth doing a thousand overhead presses for."

"Three thousand, at least. Speaking of sweet potatoes…" he grabbed her hand, and steered the yam back over to his mouth in order to take another bite. He chewed contemplatively. "So here's the plan, then. The first Squad Six Poetry Night after we're back, I will declare my love for you in _chouka _form, in front of everyone. I will end with a line inviting anyone to fight me if they don't like it. Your brother will be so blown away by my poetic skill, he will accept our love without question."

"You should stick to a _tanka_, you can't pull off a _chouka_. Also, that's a horrible plan." She finished off the yam. "I could probably salvage it, though. Can I borrow Rikichi?"

"You can always borrow Rikichi. But I can try to come up with a better plan."

Rukia liked coming up with hare-brained schemes with Renji. But she wasn't ready to think about real things. Details and ramifications. Not yet.

"Or you could put off the planning for another day and make out with me, instead."

He took a gulp of beer, and set the bottle back down on the ground again. "Now _that _sounds like a plan."

* * *

"Why can't I come up? Sode no Shirayuki gets to be up."

"Because you're 400 pounds and there's not room for you. If Sode no Shirayuki was in her bear form right now, we wouldn't let her up, either."

Zabimaru harrumphed. Their baboon chin rested on Renji's knee as he sat on the couch with Rukia, trying to read. He was scratching the fur on the top of their head absently, but apparently this was insufficient. Sode no Shirayuki was currently a lovely little white fox with a long silky tail, curled in Rukia's lap.

The zanpakutou spirits were around constantly these days. Sode no Shirayuki was an ubiquitous but unobtrusive presence- a songbird perched on a windowsill, a hare curled on the radiator. Zabimaru, on the other hand, was _in the way_. They had already been banned from the kitchen, and Renji had woken up more than once with a face full of baboon fur.

He had tried to get an explanation out of Zabimaru regarding their increased presence and received a confusing story from both ends at once about how they could barely feel him when he was in the gigai and they liked being able to see and smell him but also Rukia now felt very much like Renji and they wanted to be around her as well. Stupid zanpakutou spirits.

"Can you vary your appearance, the way Sode no Shirayuki does?" Rukia half asked, half suggested. "Can you do a small, cute version?"

"Small?!" the snake mouth hissed.

"Cute?" the baboon mouth gasped.

They promptly disapporated.

"Sorry," Rukia apologized.

"Eh, they'll be back," Renji sighed. "At least we have a few minutes of peace."

They had exactly 47 seconds of peace, before something vaguely Zabimaru-esque reappeared.

The massively powerful body had been replaced with that of a fluffy little macaque, white with black bars running over its shoulders. A delicate, bright-eyed albino garter snake rose up from the rear. "Are we cute enough now?" they asked, peevishly.

"Oh, good job, Zabimaru!" Rukia congratulated. "You can come up."

The little monkey crawled over Renji's knees and proceeded to nestle down in between Rukia and Renji, trying to make space where their thighs pressed together.

"Oh, no, you don't!" Renji scolded, scooping them back onto his own lap, and scratching their shoulders in the way they liked in their usual form.

They rolled over onto their back. "This is not submission," they snarled at Renji. "But in this shape, our tummy gets itchy."

Renji glared at Rukia, whose eyes had gone huge and sparkling. "You did this," he accused.

"I love them," she admitted. "They're so cute. You're so cute." She leaned over to plant an enthusiastic kiss on his lips.

Well. _That _he could live with.

* * *

Renji was dreaming.

Byakuya had come over for dinner, to their house in Kurage Bay, and for some reason, Renji had made udon with a sauce that seemed to be made from strawberry jam. Byakuya kept pushing the noodles around the bowl without actually eating any.

Soi Fon was here, too. She was still the commander of the Onmitsukidou, but in the warped logic of the dream, she was also Renji's mother.

"Why don't you have a job, again?" Byakuya asked him.

"I have a job," Renji excused. "I'm on a mission for Squad 2."

"Rukia is on a mission for Squad 2 _and _she has a job," Byakuya pointed out. "Also, is this where you _live_?"

"Y...eah?"

"Rukia is the most beautiful and perfect woman in Soul Society. She deserves nothing but the best."

"I agree," Renji nodded.

"Then how can you expect my sister to live in these conditions? She belongs in Kuchiki Manor, wearing the finest silks and eating the best food."

"Who are you to criticize my son's cooking?" Soi Fon interrupted. "This is an old family recipe." It was? "What I want to know," she went on, "is why you haven't been filing your mission reports."

"Mission reports?" Renji echoed. "Omaeda told us that everything should be verbal. That we shouldn't leave a paper trail."

"And you believed that? The Onmitsukidou has an entire secret paperwork system that I would have expected even a simpleton like you to have discovered by now. We're never going to let you back into the Gotei 13 at this rate. Also, you could call me once in a while. Your mother worries about you."

"I'm sorry," Renji apologized.

Byakuya was experimentally tasting a noodle. "This is an abomination," he commented. "I do not care for this."

"Do you want some more tea, Captain?" Renji offered.

"I do not," Byakuya scowled, pushing the bowl away. "I hired you," he hissed. "I allowed you to join my beloved division, a haven of nobility and discipline amid the shameless disorder of the rest of the Gotei 13. Do you know that you are the first commoner to _ever _hold the position of Vice-Captain at the Sixth?"

"I do know," Renji assured him.

"I put you over my own family members. I did this because I felt you understood what I am trying to achieve. That you had respect for my goals."

"I do!" Renji exclaimed.

"And then, you have had the _gall_, the absolute _insolence _to think you can take my sister from me."

"Well, first of all, Rukia doesn't belong to anyone-"

"Incorrect, she belongs to me."

"-and secondly, she was mine first."

"Do you mean the years that you selfishly kept her in squalor and hardship, rather than encouraging her to become a shinigami? Or do you refer to your time at the Academy, where you shamelessly postured in front of her, hoping she would notice your childish accomplishments?"

"Look, no one knows better than me how pathetic all that was, but I've worked real hard-"

"Hard work applied to the wrong task is meaningless. Perhaps thirty years spent among drunken barbarians has made you a good soldier, but it hardly makes you a worthy companion for my sister. She deserves someone of grace and breeding. Of taste and refinement."

"My Renji had such nice handwriting as a boy," Soi Fon sighed. "Just lovely."

"All I can say," Renji implored, "is that I love her with all I got. That's it. That's the only thing I can offer her."

"I think we have seen before," Byakuya returned icily, "how inadequate 'all you got' is. Do you think you love her more than myself? More than Kurosaki Ichigo?"

Renji shook his head sadly. "I can't say. I can't even convince _myself _I'm good enough for her, there's no way I'll ever be able to convince you."

Suddenly, the door burst open, and Rukia entered the house on a skateboard. She was wearing a pair of oversized sunglasses.

"Yo, Big Bro!" she announced, ollying out of the entry. "Hi, Mom." She jumped off her board, and grabbing Renji by the front of his shirt, kissed him with great vigor, then glanced at the food on the table. "Aww, you made my favorite. Thanks, sweetie."

"Rukia," Byakuya informed her. "I am here to take you home. This place is terrible. There is baboon hair everywhere."

Rukia crossed her arms. "I don't care. It's my house and I like it here."

"You are my sister and I want only the best for you."

Rukia threw one arm around Renji's neck, like she was about to put him in a headlock. "Well, Renji is my husband, and he _is _the best for me. It doesn't mean I love you any less, you know."

Renji suddenly couldn't remember if he was actually married to Rukia or not, but his heart swelled with love for her either way.

"Then I suppose I have no choice," Byakuya announced, "but to respect your wishes and give you my blessing." He looked down at his food. "I am still not eating this, however."

"Your grandmother would also appreciate a phone call once in a while," Soi Fon grumped.

In his dark bedroom in the real world, Renji's eyes shot open.

He was on his side, rolled into a tight little ball. He craned his head behind him, trying to see Rukia, who had done her best to stretch her tiny body around his back. Her arm hugged his midsection, and her face was smashed into his kidneys. She was snoring. Loudly.

"This is the last time I let you be big spoon," he hissed.

* * *

"...and you see how we use your actuals as inputs here, as an input to next months projections. So if you could set up a separate tab that would display a copy of the values we need, I wouldn't have to go looking for column BZ, which, incidentally, you had hidden."

"Ohhhh, sure I can do that," Murata from Accounting agreed.

Rukia handed over a stack of papers. "Here are the receipts from R&D's conference travel."

"Thank you, Ms. Satonaka! How did you get them to turn them all in? R&D is the worst!"

"If I told you all my secrets, I'd be out of a job. You just send me that updated spreadsheet by this afternoon, and we'll be even, okay?"

"Okay! Hey, we're probably gonna sent Kato out go on a coffee run, do you want anything?"

Rukia thought about it. "Um, sure. Is there some crazy sugary seasonal thing right now?"

"Oh, surely."

"Tell him to get me the weirdest thing they have. You should let me go tomorrow, though, you guys always pick stuff up for me."

Murata's eyes darted to Ms. Sunadori's desk and back. "Oh, it's fine! You're always so busy. Catch you later, Satonaka!"

"Bye!"

Sunadori watched with lidded eyes as Murata scurried back down to Accounting. "How _did _you get those receipts from R&D? Those assholes are practically immune to bullying."

"They're really competitive. I told them we could only process one set of forms at a time, and they would get their reimbursements in the order that they submitted their paperwork."

Sunadori shook her head. "Smart."

Rukia smiled and nodded cheerfully.

Sunadori drummed her fingers on her desk. "Look, you know I would never get personal at work." Rukia raised one eyebrow. "But you seem...different, lately. Happy."

Rukia's mouth hung open for a moment. "Ma'am, I swear, it will have no effect on my work. If those accountants cross me, I will _turn _on them-"

Sunadori waved her hands helplessly. "Calm down, Satonaka! It's a _good _thing. I admit, I was a little curious as to if there was… a reason for it?"

Rukia played with her pen while she tried to think of a reason Satonaka Tomoe would have for acting like the hottest, sweetest, bravest, toughest, dorkiest guy, living or dead, had just admitted he was head-over-heels for her. Hmm. Well.

"When we first moved here," she said slowly, "I think I told you, Takeru had his good days and his bad days. Anyway, it's been mostly good days lately." She realized it wasn't entirely a lie. Rukia thought about Renji when they had first arrived here, tired and burnt out. He was definitely happier now, too, and she didn't think it was entirely due to getting laid. He'd had a chance to get some long-needed rest, to clear his head, and now that they had the beginnings of a plan for defeating the smoke monster, he was throwing himself back into the mission and talking about getting back to work, the old Renji she knew and loved. He still fretted too much about how this was all going to continue once they got home, but that was the old Renji she knew and loved, too. "This place has been...weirdly good for him."

Sunadori looked relieved. "You know, I was a little worried you weren't going to like it here. This town is pretty small and sleepy compared to Kyoto. The last two assistants I had quit and went back to the city."

"Oh," Rukia said, surprised. The fact of the matter was, she _was _leaving. Possibly soon. On one hand, now could be a good time to give Sunadori a hint that maybe she wasn't going to be here forever. Help her not to get her hopes up.

"It's a lot more fun in the summer, though, when the town is full of tourists. There's so much more to do, and a lot of the shops and restaurants re-open, and the beach is so nice when it's not cold and hailing. I grew up here, you know, it was a great place to be a kid."

Rukia felt a strange pang of sadness. She wanted to go back to Soul Society, of course she did. She wanted to be in her own body and wear normal clothes and have normal conversations. But she also wanted to visit the beach on a hot day, and feel warm sand under her toes. She wanted to sit on the roof of their house with Renji and watch fireflies. She wanted to sleep with windows open and smell the salt on the breeze.

Rukia chickened out. The fact was, Satonaka Tomoe liked her life in Kurage Bay very much and had no plans to leave. "It sounds great, I can't wait to see it."

* * *

Renji was trying to read Tessai's notes, specifically a section on magically provided interfaces between souls and corporeal realms. There was an interesting aside on how gigais accomplished this, including a particularly clever use of the reiatsu-shielding subsystem of the model he and Rukia were currently occupying. It was hard to concentrate, though, because Rukia had stopped fidgeting.

Rukia had a complicated relationship with reading. It had taken six years of their acquaintance and a forced convalescence before she had even agreed to let him teach her how. He strongly suspected she had struggled with it at the Academy, although she hadn't ever admitted it. Obviously, she was perfectly competent at it now. She enjoyed nonfiction, mostly- her ability to tolerate and grasp dry, arcane kidou theory was far better than his own. Alternatively, if she was going to read for pleasure, the trashier the better, illustrations a bonus. But she had no patience for difficult literature, for flowery descriptions or extended symbolism. If she had to work at it, she wanted to learn something for her trouble.

She'd been dutifully spending her evenings trying to work her way through 'War Between the Oak and the River,' and Renji had gotten used to her constantly rolling over, kicking him, putting on sweaters and then taking them off again. But now, she sat cross-legged, leaning forward, flipping pages steadily. The cup of tea she had made for herself had gone cold, untouched. Every time he would try to glance over and see what part she was reading, she would _glare _at him.

Finally, she uttered an absolutely filthy expression and slammed the book closed. She picked up her tea and took a sip, making a surprised face at its tepidness.

"C'mon, what part was it?" Renji demanded.

Rukia startled, but managed to keep from spilling her tea. "Oh. Is that why you kept trying to look over my shoulder?"

"_Yes_!"

"It was the part where the masked samurai shows up and attacks the castle, and they hit him with a thousand arrows, and he takes out all the castle guards, and nothing can stop him and finally the prince attacks him and they have this great fight. And then the prince cuts his head off and _it's just an empty suit of armor_."

"Oh, man, that part was so cool! I told you it was a good book."

Rukia held up one finger. "No. NO. I had to read through 400 pages of royal lineages and breathless descriptions of people walking up hills and a bunch of stuff about everyone's house emblems. And I still have 700 pages to go. Now I'm just mad, because I know the author could have been writing _this _the whole time, but instead, let's painstakingly describe _breakfast_."

"Your brother loves that book, by the way."

Rukia sighed. "I _know_." She pursed her lips. "I could tell him you got me to read it. That would win you some points, for sure."

"Might backfire on you. He'll quiz you, and then he'll probably expect you to read more of his favorite books."

Rukia groaned. "Ugh, you're right." She stretched her arms over her head. "I feel like they cut this part from the play he made me go see. Songs about trees: in. Amazing fight sequence with possessed suit of armor: nah."

"Tessai make any notes in that section?"

"Hmm? Oh, gosh, I was so into it, I forgot to check." She picked the book up again, and began to flip back. "Not sure if it's relevant, anyway, since our evil wizard prefers possessing living bodies instead of inanimate objects, people-shaped or otherwise."

Renji glanced down at his own lap-full of notes. People-shaped inanimate objects. "Hot damn," he said, with a grin. "I just figured out what we're going to bind it to."

* * *

Renji and Rukia lay on their stomachs in the cold sand, hidden by a dune spattered with wiry seagrass and an obfuscation kidou. The temperature had dropped overnight, and a grey, blustery day was dawning.

A lone figure appeared from the north.

Renji cursed softly. It sucked, being right. Rukia squeezed his hand.

It was Oga, but also, it _wasn't_.

One might say that he walked slightly stiffly, but to Renji and Rukia, he looked exactly like a soul trying to walk around in a gigai that wasn't quite the right size. His aura was huge and restless, black bleeding into green at the edges. He seemed singularly focused on his task, as he reached the site of the ritual and set down his backpack. He pulled out candles, a small cardboard box with a pet store label on it, a knife and a koto. Next, some salt, sprinkled into a circle, and a few sigils drawn with chalk. Throughout, Oga kept his face pointed toward the sea, not appearing to actually look at anything he was doing.

After lighting the candles, he sank to his knees next to the koto. For a moment, he flexed and waggled his fingers, and then began to play. He began to sing, his usual voice overlaid with a second, older and female. The familiar cold, nauseating feeling rolled out over the sea, across the beach.

Rukia glanced at Renji out of the corner of her eye. Occasionally, Hollows could possess humans or other souls, but it was never this skillful. She had never even heard of casting magic though another person's body. She felt mildly bad that it hadn't occurred to them earlier that Oga might be helping unwillingly, but if you'd asked her, she wouldn't have thought this was possible.

Renji was looking a little green around the gills. The stomach-turning miasma was growing stronger. Rukia squeezed Renji's hand again, and tried to will him a little of her composure.

Inside his gigai, Renji felt his reiatsu abruptly run cold. Very cold. But for some reason, it felt calming and the churning in his stomach quieted. It wasn't exactly uncomfortable, and in fact, the actual cold of the winter day seemed less biting. "Was that you?" he whispered to Rukia.

Her eyes were glued to the ritual, however. Oga had stopped playing, although he was still chanting. With one hand, he was pulling a rat from the cardboard box, and holding the knife in the other.

Rukia's core temperature plummeted, and Renji's went with it, just as a tidal wave of dark, sickly magic washed over them.

Oga's hands, bloodstained, returned to the koto, and he played the spell out to sea, where is sank under the waves, making its way down, down to the wreck of the old fishing boat. As the last notes hung in the air, Oga stepped away from the koto and dipped his hands in the ocean, then wiped them dry with a handkerchief. Slowly, he cleaned up the mess of the spell, packing everything neatly away.

Rukia slowly brought their temperature back up, although she stopped a little above freezing, as the remains of the spells still hung thick in the air.

Oga shouldered his pack, and picked his way across the rocks, back to the beach. As his feet touched the sand, he froze, his body stiffening. Smoke began to pour from his ears, nose and eyes, flowing off into some unknown sink; back to Soul Society, presumably. Oga wobbled, and then sat down heavily, gripping his head in his hands. After a moment, he lay down, breathing heavily.

Renji extracted his hand from Rukia's, and patted her on the shoulder. "Keep an eye on him until he makes it back up to the road, okay? I got an idea. I'll meet you up there." Staying low behind the dunes, he made his way straight into the woods. Oga seemed thoroughly out of it, and didn't notice.

After what felt like an indeterminable amount of time, Oga lurched to his feet and began shuffling back the way he had come. He walked like a drunk man, unsteady and unobservant. Rukia followed at a fair distance, staying low to the ground. Eventually, he turned at the dirt path that led up to the access road, and she ducked into the woods. When the reached the top, he looked left and right. He didn't seem to know where he was.

"Hey, there!" she heard Renji's cheerful voice ring out. "Oga Haruta, 'zat you?"

Oga shook his head dazedly. "Sato...naka? What are _you _doing here?"

Renji trotted up. "I take a walk in the morning, it's good for the ol' leg. You comin' to see me?"

"See you? Huh? Where are we?"

Renji squinted at him, concerned. "Maybe half a klick south of my house? Are you okay?"

Oga frowned. "I don't think I am."

"Do you want to go back to my place? I got coffee on."

Oga shook his, horrified. "No. No, I shouldn't."

"Can I help you get home, then? You don't look so good."

Oga blinked a few times. "Yeah. Yeah, please."

From the woods, Rukia shook her head, a wry smile on her face. She should have known Renji would power-of-friendship his way through this mess.

* * *

Oga was quiet and dazed on the bus ride back into town. He would occasionally start listing to one side, until Renji would catch him and push him back upright. Renji wondered how long it had taken him to get home on previous occasions.

When they reached Oga's stop, Renji followed him, steering him in the correct direction now and again. Oga seemed only vaguely aware of his companion, even as they rode the elevator together, and he unlocked his apartment door.

Renji had been prepared to enter a den of spiderwebs and flickering candles, but it looked pretty much like a typical young man's apartment. There were stacks of books and notebooks on most of the flat surfaces. The sink was overflowing with cereal bowls. Oga carefully set his backpack down, and began to unpack it, carefully putting away each item. He had a shelf where he put the koto, along with a bamboo canister and a box made of dark wood. The carefully broken-down pet store box went in the recycle bin.

"I'm gonna make us some tea," Renji announced loudly, after locating an electric kettle. "Hey, man, what is all that stuff?"

Oga looked at his guest, suddenly registering him. "You helped me get home."

"Yeah," Renji agreed. He was trying to walk the fine line between acting how a normal human would act when his friend was going nuts, and trying to ease Oga back out of the possession. "How do you feel?"

"I feel crummy," Oga commented, as though the thought had just occurred to him. "Really terrible."

"What were you doing down at the beach at the crack of dawn?" Renji prodded, digging around in the cupboards for tea.

"I had to go," Oga replied matter-of-factly.

"You had to go," Renji echoed.

"Yeah."

"Why?"

Oga's brow wrinkled. "I had to. It was… it was my end of the deal."

Asking him very specific questions seemed to be helping. "The deal with who?"

"The deal with...them. The people from the other side."

"You can't see ghosts, Oga."

It appeared that Oga owned exactly two mugs. Renji squinted into them and decided they could use a rinse.

"They aren't ghosts. They're people. They live on the other side. Sometimes they want me to do things."

"And what do you get out of the deal?"

"They're going to find my dad for me. On the other side. He made a deal with them, too. His wasn't a good deal, though."

"What deal did he make?"

"He was dying. He was afraid of what it was like. They said they would get him a good position. He could be rich and live in a nice part of the afterlife. But he had to- they made him do something real bad. They made him sink his ship. They made him kill his friends."

"Why did you make a deal with them?" Renji asked. "You knew it would be another bad deal."

Oga looked at him blankly.

"Let's try something different. How did you meet them?" He poured some hot water into the tea mugs.

Oga was blinking a lot now, and shaking his head. Renji steered him over to the kitchen table and sat him down, pressing the mug into his hands.

"The people from the other side," Renji repeated. "How did you meet them?"

"The people from the other side," Oga echoed. "From my dream."

"From your dream."

"I started having bad dreams. After I moved back. No, that's not right. It was after I brought some of my dad's stuff over." He glanced around the apartment, and his eyes stopped on the shelf with the koto and the boxes. He lifted his tea.

"Hey, that's real hot!" Renji warned him.

Oga blinked again and stared at his tea. "Satonaka. Why are you in my apartment?"

This poor sap.

"I found you down at the beach. Do you remember going down to the beach?"

Oga's face crumpled. "I remember going. I don't remember being there." His hands clutched at the mug. "Why are you here?"

"Because I'm worried about you!"

Oga's face went slack again. "Oh. Oh, good. I'm worried about me, too."

* * *

"Maybe I should have let him just forget it happened," Renji frowned.

He and Rukia were sitting on one of the picnic tables outside her office building. Despite the cold morning, the day was turning warmer. Not warm enough for anyone to be taking their lunch outside, though.

"It sounds like he was aware of it on some level."

"Maybe," Renji agreed. "Anyway, I told him I would help him figure this crap out, and the first thing I made him do was turn on location services on his phone. I kinda doubt any evil kidou-masters back in Soul Society know how to turn location friggin' services back off, so we should be able to track him from now on."

"Well, that's a positive outcome."

"Yeah. He wanted to just smash up that koto and the other stuff." Renji frowned. "I wouldn't let him. I told him that it might cause something worse to happen. But I feel bad. If this were a normal mission, that's exactly what I woulda done. I hate this Squad 2 cloak-and-dagger bullcrap."

Rukia shrugged. "You weren't exactly wrong. Magical artifacts should be disposed of properly. Probably an incineration kidou would have done the trick, but it's human magic, so who knows?"

Renji looked miserable.

Rukia patted him on the back. "It's one more week. Seven days. We're taking it out this time, and he's going to help us."

Renji nodded. "Yeah. One more week."

* * *

The day had continued to warm, and by the time Rukia was walking home from the bus stop, it was downright pleasant. Even though it was still early February, every day stretched a few minutes longer than the one before. The sun was low in the sky, but it was still up.

Rukia stopped in the entryway without taking off her shoes. "Hey, Ren?" she called.

"What's up?" he asked, appearing with a dish towel slung over one shoulder.

"There might be a half hour of daylight left and it's really nice out. Would it ruin dinner if we took a walk, maybe down to the beach? Real quick?"

He was already putting on his shoes. "It will not, and even if it did, a walk on the beach with you would be worth ruining dinner for."

As they stepped out into the waning sunshine, Rukia slipped her hand into his. "Hey, babe?" she asked hesitantly.

"What's up?"

"I think...I might be ready to talk about what happens when we get back. Maybe make some plans. If we find some things we agree on."

Renji nodded slowly, and looked at her slyly out of the corner of his eye. "You mean, like, which bar you want to go drinking at with all our friends to celebrate being back?"

She smirked at him. "No."

"Oh, then you mean figure out how I'm gonna salvage the rest of the futsal season, when I know those jerks have been skipping practice without me around?"

"Certainly not that."

"How to explain your new haircut to your brother?"

Rukia shot him her best fake-angry face. "Are you done being stupid yet? Obviously, you are taking all of this much too lightly, as usual. Being together is," she swallowed, "really important to me. I love you and I don't want to go back to the way things were and I also don't want this to end with you and my brother murdering each other, so let's make some friggin' plans, okay?"

Grinning, Renji let go of her hand, and threw his arm around her shoulder, pulling her close. "I love you, too. Let's make some friggin' plans."

~ end part 13


	15. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

* * *

"Hey, Ru, can you get the door? I think Zabimaru wants to come in."

"Why can't they just appear back in the house when they want to come in?"

"They just want you to admire the bird or squirrel or whatever they've caught this time."

Rukia sighed. She supposed this was her fault. Zabimaru had discovered that they _liked _being small, because it made it a challenge to chase down the many interesting things that lived in the woods. The scratching at the front door became more persistent. "Hold on, I'm coming!"

It was not Zabimaru.

The little black cat sitting on the front step looked her up and down with narrowed eyes. Rukia was wearing an apron, and was pretty liberally covered in flour.

"Oh, hi. Come on in. We weren't expecting you."

"No one expects me, that's how I like it," Yoruichi grumbled, as Rukia held open the door for her.

"Go on into the kitchen, Renji's in the middle of something. Ren! Yoruichi's here!"

The kitchen was separated from the dining area by a half-height bar, which Yoruichi hopped up on. Renji slid a plate over to her with a little fish-shaped waffle on it. "We're making taiyaki," he explained unnecessarily. "You gotta keep going while the pan's hot."

"Have you actually eaten any, yet?" Rukia asked. "They might be terrible."

"I did eat one," Renji admitted. "I burnt my tongue on it, but I kept eating it because it was so good."

Cats had a limited range of facial expressions, but Yoruichi had definitely managed to register "judgement" all over hers. "When did you two start screwing?"

Renji and Rukia froze, their faces twin rictuses of horror.

"We're, uh-"

"That is-"

"It's not actually-"

"You're _baking _together. Kuchiki, you're wearing one of Abarai's crummy bandanas. You're-" Yoruichi blinked. "You're not just screwing, are you? You've gone mushy for each other."

"So what if we have?" Rukia finally found her tongue. "Who cares?"

"Didn't you pay any attention to Omaeda's lectures on field protocol? You can't screw on a mission. You could get kicked out of the Onmitsukidou!"

"I did pay attention, and he didn't say anything about it," Renji replied, unconcerned, flipping the next set of taiyaki. "There was even an appendix to one of the manuals about the proper use of protection kidou."

Yoruichi grinned. "Arright, you got me. Everyone hooks up on field missions. It's the only good part about them. I just wasn't expecting you two to get over all your weird baggage."

"What baggage?" Renji demanded at the same time Rukia exclaimed, "Don't tell Brother, okay?"

"Anyway, I didn't come here to talk about your lame-o love lives. The full moon is in less than a week, and I need to ask you to do something for me." Yoruichi's voice had gone very serious.

"We aren't going to like this, are we?" Rukia asked.

"Probably not. There's politics. When I ran the Onmitsukidou, I had the full power of the Shihouin Clan behind me. I did things however I saw fit. Soi Fon is loyal to me, but she isn't the head of a major house. She can't maintain the same hold."

"What does this have to do with the mission?" Renji asked grimly.

"If you two hold up your end of the bargain, Onmitsukidou operatives are going to arrest a prominent citizen of the Seireitei and seize a dangerous artifact that is going to promptly fall into the hands of another party who shouldn't have it either. Additionally, this will also result in an unfortunate power shift in the Central 46. I need more time. We need to destroy the thing. I need to plant an agent I can trust, I need-"

"You need us to blow the mission," Renji cut her off. "Stay here another month."

"Yeah," Yoruichi admitted. "Or longer."

Everyone was silent.

"Who is this potential power shift unfortunate for?" Renji asked. "Soul Society generally? The Gotei 13? The Shihouins?"

"Well, it's certainly not great for Soul Society or the Gotei 13, which means it's also not good for _your case_," Yoruichi replied. "But I will be upfront with you: it is particularly bad for my house, yes." She licked her paw twice. "Don't know how much either of you care, but the Kuchiki have no dog in this fight."

Renji nodded. "Honesty appreciated."

Rukia swallowed. "What if we destroyed the smoke monster? It sounded like, in that book you gave us, that would destroy the artifact, too."

Yoruichi's tail whipped to and fro. "Well, sure. But how are going to do that? The reports I read said it's untouchable. You said the same yourself."

Rukia looked at Renji. "I think that once we bind it to this plane, we'll be able to hurt it."

Renji thought back to the screeches it had made when Mitsuki had blasted it. It had gotten away because, while it had been pulled into the ring, there was nothing to keep it from escaping again. If they could trap it and then injure it... "Yeah. That seems right."

"But how are you going to bind it?" Yoruichi pressed. "You got some new idea since the last time I was here?"

"We've figured something out." Rukia went on to describe their plan.

Yoruichi listened thoughtfully, nibbling on her taiyaki. "So I could get behind all this," she said, when Rukia was finished, "if one of you were Kurosaki. Or a captain at least. That plan of yours would take an insane amount of power. The working together part is a nice idea, but in practice, it only works for people like Kyouraku and Ukitake, who're soulbound and have worked together for hundreds of years. I know you've just hooked up, and you're all woopsy for each other, but it's no small thing to combine reiatsu, let alone-"

"We've done it," Renji interrupted. "I mean, the only thing we have to practice on is the spirit of Rukia's zanpakutou, but we've bound her a dozen or so times now."

Yoruichi looked back and forth between them. "You're joking."

"Nope," Rukia shrugged, biting into a taiyaki. "Wow, Renji, these are really good."

"Well," said Yoruichi. "This changes things."

* * *

"Arright, you magnificent bastards, you ready to get it right this time?" Ozui asked, his hands folded on the table. He had come alone this week.

"Don't see how it's our fault your side screwed up last time," Renji frowned.

Ozui shrugged. "Crap happens."

"Well, we're taking it out this month, so they better be ready," Rukia warned.

"You got a plan?" he asked.

"We do."

"You need any support from my people?"

Renji and Rukia looked at each other. "Nah."

Ozui raised his eyebrows. "Great. Good luck, then. Don't die. It's extra paperwork for me if you die."

"You don't even want to know what our plan is?"

"Gonna be a bunch of kidou nerd gobbledegook, right? I don't care about that nonsense."

Renji elbowed Rukia. "He's got your number."

Ozui stood up. "We'll send you anything we find on the scanner, as usual. Call me up if you change your mind and need anything. I hope to Hell you two finish this thing and I _will not _see you again next week. Believe me, no one is as sick of this awful little town as I am."

Renji and Rukia waved cheerfully as he walked out the door.

"I wonder," Rukia commented as his car pulled away, "if he's working for someone. One of the families Yoruichi is trying to prevent from gaining power."

"For all we know, he could be working for Yoruichi, and she's playing us from multiple sides." Renji pointed out.

"It's true," Rukia agreed. "It's also possible that he's just lazy and terrible at his job."

Renji shrugged. "And we'll probably never find out."

* * *

For possibly the last time, Renji stood at the back entrance to Block 12, Number 3.

Mrs. Kuwashima opened the door for him before he had a chance to knock.

"How's the new door workin' out?" he asked, by way of greeting.

"You've asked me that the last two times you've come over. It's fine. It's a door."

"Never hung a door before. It was tricky. Just wanted to make sure." He glanced inside. The table was set for tea. "I guess you know why I'm here."

"You're here for tea. Come sit down."

He sat. There were cookies, too, the cinnamon and sugar ones he liked best. He knew how to make them himself now, but there was still something nice about someone else making something for you. "We, uh, aren't gonna be around too much longer."

She nodded as she poured him a cup of tea.

"Couple more days at most." He rubbed the back of his neck. "It's possible something will go catastrophically wrong, and we'll still be here." He sucked his teeth. "It's also possible something will go catastrophically wrong, and we'll bite it."

Mrs. Kuwashima took a cookie and bit into it. He wondered if she knew how this was all going to fall out. If this was the last time she would ever see him.

Renji fished a folded sheet of paper out of his jacket pocket, and slid it across the table to her. "We didn't want to destroy Ms. Nagato's witchin' stuff, because we were worried about tippin' off the bad guys we're trying to catch. Here's the name of the guy who has them. He's 'sposed to come and find you when this is over, but he might forget, and you might have to go find him. You and Mrs. Shiina can dispose of those, right?"

"We will."

Renji frowned. "Y'know, it's possible some shinigami might come by and erase your memory. I figured there was a good chance of that happenin' to Oga, but I didn't think about you. I kinda wish you still had those wards."

"Don't worry about me. I have a jar where I keep extra copies of my memories."

"Oh. That sounds...convenient." This was so awkward. "Oga's kind of a lonely guy. He lost his dad, and he's been trying to chase down ghosts, and he's been gettin' possessed by smoke demons, and he might need some, um, advice. So you might end up getting a new customer out o' this."

Mrs. Kuwashima chuckled. "I'll keep an eye on him for you."

"I'm glad I got to meet you, Mrs. Kuwashima. You were real nice to me, and you taught me a lot, and I'm sorry about what happened."

"I'm not," she replied. "Sometimes things have to happen, and she was lucky to get a personal escort, and I was lucky to have someone to help me through the process." She thought for a moment. "Will you see her? On the other side?"

"When you cross over, no one knows exactly where you'll end up. But I wouldn't be surprised at all if I run into her in a few years when I go down to the shinigami school to look for new recruits." He could just imagine the kind of nightmare Misuki would be for some poor vice-captain. "My division probably has too many rules for her taste, but she'd be a good fit at Tomoe's, for sure."

"One thing I've been confused about," Mrs. Kuwashima brought up. "Are you and Tomoe _actually _married?"

"Oh, uh, no. We're just…" The word "friends" stuck in his mouth. Gosh. There was a line he wasn't going to have to use anymore. He realized he was making a goofy little smile. "Maybe someday. If I play my cards right." Y'know, maybe it wouldn't hurt to ask. "I don't 'spose you can actually see my future, can you?"

"Not past the next few days, unfortunately," she replied, picking up her teacup and cradling it in her hands. "But I suspect you've got a good one ahead of you."

* * *

Rukia glanced at the clock for probably the fifth time this hour.

It was mid-afternoon.

It was, most likely, her last day of work.

She could be slacking off. Ms. Sunadori wasn't even here. She was off at another important meeting with the board. (Apparently, it was "board" and not "bored" and it was the equivalent of the Central 46 for the fishery. They took businesses very seriously in the World of the Living.) But instead, Rukia was desperately trying to finish everything she could, and save it in obvious places, and leave little notes and instructions for things she was in the middle of.

Why was she doing this?

She didn't know.

The fishery had run just fine three months ago.

Rukia wasn't even anything special, office worker-wise. She didn't actually have a college degree, she still looked at the keyboard while she typed, and she cheated on her work a lot once she found about about something called "macros."

Sunadori walked in the office, grinning widely, with a dazed look in her eyes. She sat down at her desk and stared straight ahead for a few minutes. Rukia watched her out of the corner of her eye. Finally, Sunadori shook her head a few times, but the grin remained. "Satonaka!"

"Yes, ma'am!" Rukia barked.

"Stop typing, I have something to tell you."

Rukia compulsively hit CTRL-S, and turned her attention to her boss.

Sunadori cleared her throat. "My father has announced his retirement. The board has named me the new CEO."

"That's wonderful, ma'am!" Rukia congratulated. She didn't know what a CEO was, but Sunadori sure talked about it a lot. It was probably like being a captain.

"It's not just good for me, you know," Sunadori went on. "I'll be taking on a lot of new responsibilities, which means I'm going to need someone to handle more of my day-to-day tasks."

"Are you going to hire someone?" Rukia asked, her brows creasing.

"I am, actually. I was thinking of hiring two new office helpers, the position you're in now. There's far too much work for just one person."

"Oh, wow," Rukia commented. That was good, very good that they were planning to add staff anyway.

"And I'll be promoting you to Office Manager."

The words rang in Rukia's ears.

Promoted.

Rukia had worked in her actual job for over forty years, and even though people told her all the time that she was useful and helpful, she was never actually useful or helpful enough to merit promotion. She had been here for three months. She didn't even know what she was doing.

"I know you're pretty new, but you've taken to this like a natural. You and I have a rapport, I feel. You're going to do great. _We're _going to do great."

"Oh, no," Rukia murmured.

"What was that?"

"I… I'm really grateful, ma'am! I just... I haven't been feeling well all afternoon, and I was thinking of going home early. I'm just really overwhelmed right now!" Rukia's face felt hot.

Sunadori gave her the kindest smile she had ever seen on the woman's face. "You should go home early, Satonaka. Rest up. Take tomorrow off, too, if you need. We'll start making plans when you get back."

* * *

It was the day of the full moon. High tide wasn't for 12 hours.

They were supposed to be taking a nap.

They'd been up most of the previous two nights, although the smoke monster hadn't bothered to make an appearance. It was fine. The creature would be at its most corporeal tonight, and they would defeat it, and then they would go back to Soul Society, where they belonged.

Rukia had tried to convince Renji that vigorous sex would tire him out and help him fall asleep. He hadn't believed her, but that certainly hadn't stopped them from giving it a go, anyway. Now, Rukia lay on her stomach, her upper body draped over his. They were in their gigais because, while they generally preferred their soul bodies, gigai sex had certain merits, and they probably weren't going to get to do it again. Renji rubbed his hand over her back, lingering on the tattoo on her shoulder. He wondered if he could convince her to get a similar one for real.

"What are you looking forward to about being home?" Rukia asked sleepily.

"Getting things settled," he replied, maybe a little too quickly. "Knowin' what's what. Gettin' back to work, hopefully."

"Getting back to work? _Lame_, Abarai. I thought you would say seeing people again."

"That, too. How 'bout you?"

"Seeing Brother, mostly. It's silly, I guess. He got through his life just fine for a long time before he adopted me, but I just worry if he's okay when I'm not there."

"He'll be glad to have you back," Renji reassured her.

Rukia thought about being back at the Kuchiki mansion. The gardens would still be spare and sleeping for winter. There would be no heaps of shoes in the entryway, or singleton socks dropped in the hallway. She would have her own, silent, non-drafty bedroom, with her own warm, lonely futon. Food would be prepared far off, out of sight, no aromas permeating the house, or the hums of off-key little cooking songs.

It would just be for a little while, though. They had a plan. She felt good about the plan. She felt good about the new life they were going to start together, just as soon as she got Brother on board.

Renji was actually starting to drift off, when Rukia pushed herself up. "Renji!"

"Whu?"

"Are you gonna keep cooking when we get back?"

"Huh? Uhh… probably? I mean, not all the time, but when I feel like it. I got a kitchen, y'know. 'Sgot… maybe a beer in it? Bottle of soy sauce, possibly?"

Rukia settled back down again. "Good. The food at Brother's is very nice, but you always make things just the way I like them."

He ran his fingers through her hair. "You gonna start showing up at my place first thing in the morning, demanding eggy rice?"

"Something like that."

Renji snorted. "Anytime you want, Ru. Anytime."

* * *

Rukia stood on a cold, windy beach with her eyes closed, her spiritual senses curling out in long tendrils. There was something very satisfying about a straightforward, old-fashioned Hollow hunt.

There it was, the faint, low-level thrum of anger and distorted reality. She hit send on a quick text to let Renji things were starting. A few quick zigzags of shunpou, and she found it, emerging from the shallows. The Hollow was large and lumbering, moving on at least four legs, and draped with thick curtains of what looked like seaweed. She could only catch glimpses of its bone-white mask from beneath the wet fronds.

This needed to be quick and clean. Keeping her distance, Rukia released into shikai. The Hollow's fronds bristled at the rush of reiatsu.

She called out a White Moon, but as soon as the circle began to glow, the monster leapt away, far more nimbly than its bulk would suggest.

Circling it warily, Rukia tried again, a White Ripple this time, which was harder to dodge. It hit the Hollow full force this time, the monster ruffling its coat defensively. Apparently, this created an insulating layer between it and the worst of her ice. It shook out its fronds, and pebbles of rime fell to the beach.

There was some movement beneath the Hollow's curtain, and three sharp thorns shot towards Rukia. She parried them, and charged. She didn't have time to play with this thing, Renji was waiting for her.

It screeched, and charged back. Rukia slipped to the side at the last minute and, holding her sword at an oblique angle, sheared off a significant section of its seaweed coat. One brown leg, ending in a two-toed foot, was now visible, dry and twisted like the roots of a tree.

The Hollow roared and shook, launching another salvo of thorns at her, which she dodged easily. As the fronds waved from side-to-side, she caught a glimpse of its mask, horned and tusked, with far too many rolling, yellow eyes. It was about a quarter of the way around from the visible leg.

Rukia pivoted, charged again, and took a great leap, her sword plunging downward from an overhead strike. The blade slid through the leafy covering, crunching into the bone beneath. Rukia braced her feet against the mask and pushed with the full force of her spiritual energy, the blade easing deeper as the Hollow swung its great head, trying to dislodge her. With a grunt and a final burst of strength, she forced Sode no Shirayuki home, and the mask split through.

Jumping free, she wiped and resheathed her sword while she watched it dematerialize. Tight schedule or no, it was important to make sure the job was done. Fortunately, it was a clean kill, no funny business.

She pulled out her phone, Renji was supposed to send her his location when he engaged the smoke monster. Before she could even get it open, she _felt _Zabimaru release, _felt _the binding she had helped to set attempt to grab hold.

Rukia shoved her phone back in her pocket and broke into flash-step. Her heart knew how to find them.

* * *

Renji leaned up against the side of the building, wishing he had a cigarette. He'd quit smoking a quarter century ago, but it would have been nice to have some token excuse to loiter outside Oga's apartment building, instead of just standing around like a creep. Also, he was nervous.

Faintly, very far away, he felt the Hollow. Everything was starting.

His phone buzzed, and he glanced at it. Text from Rukia. "Hollow sighted. Off to work. See you soon."

As he was shoving his phone back in his pocket, he heard the door open, and a figure emerged. It was Oga, the Oga/not-Oga they had seen at the beach. The aura was different this time, though, black wreathed with smokey grey. It was clear he carried a passenger from the posture, the confidence of the stride. He was moving forward purposefully, not paying too much attention to his surroundings.

Renji followed, trying to keep a good distance. It wasn't that late, only around 10:30, so there was some foot traffic, but not too much. This was the tricky part, figuring out where to engage. Obviously, he couldn't let Oga get to the Hollow, but that shouldn't be a problem, since Rukia would likely dispatch it in short order. That was a limiting factor in itself- if she knocked it off too soon, the smoke monster might skip out. On the other hand, he needed to find a good place to fight, without too many humans around. And the longer he stalled, the more time it gave Rukia to get back here. Renji was painfully aware of how this was going to go if she somehow got held up.

Oga seemed to be taking a straight-line path coastward, picking whatever side street or alley presented itself. Renji reviewed his mental map of this part of town and made a decision. He sent Rukia a quick text so she would have his location, although she would likely be able to follow his reiatsu like a beacon once things started going down.

"Oi! _Oga _! That you, man?" Any amount of time he could stall by getting the thing's attention would be helpful.

They were in the big lot behind the grocery story, back by the loading docks. Three street lights cast big pools of bright light among the deep shadows. Oga didn't acknowledge him in any way, just continued to stride forward. Renji resorted to Plan B. He attacked.

The thing in Oga's body turned. Its eyes were cold and black, not Oga's eyes at all. It was incredibly fast. It grabbed Renji's fist, absorbing the momentum of his blow. That was fine, actually, because that punch was a feint. Renji slammed his other hand, the hand wearing the soul removal glove, against Oga's chest.

Something sprang free of Oga's body, but wasn't the smoke monster, it was Oga himself, coughing and wheezing, still attached by his soul chain. Crap. That was not supposed to happen. Renji kept hammering away at Oga's body, and black smoke started to come forth, not all at once, but in small clouds.

"What's going _on_?" Oga wailed, rubbing his eyes. He took in his soul chain and his body and- "Satonaka? Am I dead? What is _happening_?"

"Uh, this is about to get real weird, pal!" Renji shouted at him. It looked like the monster was abandoning ship vis-a-vis Oga's body. Smoke was roiling forth from it steadily now. "Look, you're probably not gonna remember any of this later, but whatever happens to me, do not worry- Ggghhharggh!"

Renji could faintly hear Oga's screams as he was suddenly surrounded by smoke monster. It was so overwhelming that he almost didn't realize that the burning in his nose and eyes was something more, that his body was being infiltrated. He began to choke and gasp, and then he was flung free from his gigai.

The smoke sending had done this many times, now, and was used to human souls clawing and clinging to their flesh as it forced them out. When Renji sprang forth easily from his artificial body, the monster stumbled, and fell in, confused by this strange bio-magical contraption.

Renji drew Zabimaru and plunged the sword forward into the body he had occupied for the last three months, through the hakusui, through the saketsu, through the heart, if it could be said to have these things.

He was momentarily distracted by the terrified look on ghost-Oga's face, the poor man's eyes as large as saucers.

"It's me!" he tried to explain. "This is the real me. That's the fake me. This next part is gonna look real bad. Maybe don't look! _Howl, Zabimaru! _"

The ghost of Oga promptly passed out.

It was like releasing into shikai, but it was also _not _.

His sword twisted and warped, splitting into segments and sprouting teeth, but it did not snap neatly into its familiar form. The crackle of power that accompanied release did not dissipate, but grew, reaching and grasping, snarling the smoky vortices of the smoke creature, trying to pull it into himself, theirself.

The smoke monster realized something was wrong immediately, and began trying to escape. When it realized it could not, it began to _fight_. Power poured forth from it, acidic and cold, tangling with his own, grappling for dominance. Zabimaru snarled in response, bucking and lashing out. Renji felt like he was trying to control a tiny boat in a roaring rapid. The most he could do was hold on. His world had narrowed to this maelstrom of power, of trying to hold Zabimaru steady, of trying to ground this massive voltage pouring through him. He couldn't see anything, couldn't hear anything, couldn't feel the Hollow anymore. Where was Rukia? Where the hell was Rukia?

Suddenly, there was a hand on his back, and it was like someone had dropped a two-ton anchor off the back of his dinghy. A thin, cold, guidewire of energy shot through his own saketsu, providing a core for Zabimaru's waves of power to coalesce around. He gasped for breath, not realizing he'd been holding it this whole time.

"You're doing fine," he heard Rukia's soothing voice from behind him, and suddenly, he felt weirdly, pleasantly safe and protected.

Then, the smoke monster went wild, lashing out with an impossible amount of power. Zabimaru exploded in response, a coronal mass ejection of reiatsu that fed back into his body and out his back. He reacted as Yoruichi had taught him, trying to convert the energy into kidou, but instead of engulfing his back in flames, it went instead into Rukia, who calmly placed her other hand on his back and poured all that power right back into him, tamed and smoothed.

Great loops of their co-mingled power wrapped the cold depths of the shadow creature and squeezed tight. Its struggles grew weaker… and stopped.

Renji panted. This was it. He hadn't even moved that whole time, the entire struggle had been contained within them. He felt Rukia remove one hand from his back tentatively.

"Can you hold it yourself?" she asked, "if I let go?"

"I think so," he replied, and she removed her other hand as well. The great chains of Zabimaru's power held tight, bright and strong. "I'm good."

Rukia stepped to his side, and he gasped when he felt her killing intent flare up. "I am ready."

The cold steel in her voice, the sharp hunger of her reiatsu, was irresistible. He bared his teeth as he felt his veins burn with his own desire to end this.

Something was happening. Their reiatsu, which had synchronized the moment she arrived, was building into something massive. Something Zakari-sized. Rukia was brilliant, a star, as she chanted Hado 54, the incinerating flame. She took her time, enunciating every syllable, rolling the power on her tongue. Renji's reiatsu mixed with hers, buoying it, feeding into the spell. He had never cast a hadou above 35 himself, and even the ones in the low 30's were fraught. The feel of the spell rising between them, swirling and powerful, was intoxicating, like that split-second of entering bankai, drawn out to an impossible length. When Rukia had finished chanting, she held it for just an instant, before releasing it into his poor, beleaguered gigai.

The heat was immense, and the creature screeched and screamed as it burned, but the bind held, unharmed by the spell, glowing red hot. And then it was gone. Their reiatsu receded like a great wave returning to the sea. Zabimaru collapsed back into their sealed form. Renji pulled his sword forth from the pile of ash, and carefully wiped it clean. He looked over at Rukia, whose eyes were bird-bright and a little wild. He could still feel her soul tangled with his, knew her heart beat in time with his own.

"We did it," he managed.

"We did it," she agreed.

He wanted to grab her, to press her to him, to kiss her. It seemed inadequate. How could he ever possibly be closer to her than what they had just done?

"I love you," he gasped.

"I love you so much," she agreed, her face splitting into a huge grin.

And then, senkaimon began opening, three of them, and Onmitsukidou were flooding the premises.

"You frigging monsters!" Omaeda's voice boomed joyfully. "Division 12 is gonna have our heads for not putting power limiters on you two!"

"Somebody needs to get Oga back in his body!" Renji shouted belatedly. "And please wipe that poor man's memory!"

There were hands on them, pushing them through one of the senkaimon.

They were so happy, drunk on victory and love and the promise of going home.

Soi Fon stood before them, her hands crossed behind her back, her face inscrutable.

"I got 'im," Rukia said sheepishly.

"Did we do okay?" Renji asked, grinning.

"You did very well," Soi Fon acknowledged. "The Onmitsukidou thanks you for your service."

Then she pulled the memory replacer out from behind her back, and with a puff of smoke and a spring-loaded bird's head, their minds went absolutely blank.

~ end part 14


	16. Epilogue 1

Epilogue 1

* * *

"You know," Ukitake said as they walked to the First Division together, "you don't have to re-hire him."

Byakuya regarded his elder from out of the corner of one eye. "What are you on about?"

"The Lieutenant of Squad 6 is traditionally the Kuchiki heir, no? You haven't named one, since you haven't had any family members with captain potential, up until now, right?"

Up until now. "Trying to foist her off upon me, are you?"

"Trying to steal your vice-captain is what I'm doing."

"You wouldn't like him," Byakuya sniffed.

"I like him just fine!"

"I've trained him too well. He runs a very tight ship. Your slipshod operation wouldn't survive him."

Ukitake laughed. "Well, I suspect you won't much recognize the place once your sister gets her mitts on it. She has _ideas_."

"And that is why I will retain Abarai, who has _loyalties_."

Ukitake smiled as they ascended the steps to the meeting hall. "I'm glad you've come to terms with your sister taking an officer's position. She's far too good to remain unranked."

Byakuya shot him an icy glare. "Have I? You think you have outsmarted me by getting the Captain-Commander to take an interest in her, but who says Rukia even wishes to become an adjutant? I will talk with her, make sure she knows what the position entails. I'm sure when she realizes how it will interfere with her other pursuits, she will be dissuaded."

Ukitake's brow furrowed. "Does your sister have other pursuits? Besides training relentlessly and getting your lieutenant into trouble?"

Byakuya frowned. "I will find her some pursuits. Perhaps she might take an interest in orchids."

"Hmm," Ukitake nodded, obviously humoring him as he pushed open the doors to the meeting hall. "Orchids."

It appeared the meeting had started without them.

"What is _she _doing here?" Byakuya recoiled.

"-absolutely unconscionably!" Shihouin Yoruichi was screaming at the Captain-General, who seemed to be taking it in stride.

"It was laid out quite clearly in the initial mission security parameters that you yourself approved," Soi Fon replied mildly. "Maybe you should read the fine print once in a while."

"Have you read the final mission report? Did you see what she's thrown away?"

"Lady Shihouin," the Captain-Commander rumbled. "We have guests with insufficient security clearances to continue this line of discussion."

"You're going to have to tell them what she's done!" Yoruichi snapped. "Kuchiki hasn't even got the heart of a grasshopper, and he's going to be outraged, you'll see!"

"We'll get to that," the Captain-Commander dismissed waving a hand. "Captains, welcome. I suppose you've already heard the news."

"That Central 46 has approved your request to have Abarai and Kuchiki reinstated?" Ukitake asked for reassertion, his voice made a little uncertain by Yoruichi's outburst.

"It was a good day to sneak something in at the bottom of the agenda," Yamamoto smiled.

Byakuya found the man's glibness off-putting. A prominent member of one of the second-tier families, a man considered a strong contender for the next leader of the Kidou Corps, had been found dead a few days previous, a victim of a dangerous kidou gone awry. His loss had caused a great number of reverberations through his family and their various alliances. None of this was any concern to the Kuchikis, but it seemed distasteful to use the disarray to ramrod things through the assembly, or at the very least, distasteful to _brag _about it.

"How goes their mission?" Ukitake enquired hopefully. "Could they be recalled? Is it nearly complete?"

"It ended a short time ago, as it happens," Soi Fon replied. "Their performance was exemplary. Unfortunately, all mission details are classified, but I have written each of them a commendation to be placed in their personnel files."

"Oh, how generous of you!" Yoruichi snarled.

"What is going on?" Byakuya asked. "Why is Lady Shihouin here?"

"The House of Shihouin still maintains certain interests within the Onmitsukidou, and this case was one of those instances," Yoruichi sniffed unhelpfully. "Also, Rukia and Renji have put their asses on the line for Soul Society time and again, only to get screwed over, and _someone _had to be looking out for them!"

"You're out of order, Shihouin," Yamamoto warned.

"Fine, whatever," Yoruichi bit off. "Go ahead, Soi Fon. Why don't you tell them what you've done?"

Soi Fon gave the small sigh of someone who is tired of dealing with petty nuisances. "The case in which they were involved was highly sensitive and potentially damaging to certain important parties within Soul Society. At the start of the mission, we hypnotically induced a memory point, and at the close, we actuated it."

Juushirou wrinkled his nose. "Are you saying you wiped their memories?"

"Yes," Soi Fon replied. "Who would want three months of memories of boredom and isolation anyway?"

"I would have let them be the judge of that!"

"Lady Shihouin, I am about to eject you," Yamamoto warned. "The act is done and irreversible in any case. All this posturing is pointless."

"I just thought their captains, who _care _about them, should know," Yoruichi raged.

Byakuya wasn't sure how to feel. He hated to agree with Shihouin, of course, but this did seem unfair. On the other hand, although it might be presumptuous to assume that Rukia felt the same, he would just as soon have their separation erased from his own mind.

It appeared that Juushirou also didn't know which was to turn. "Will we be able to see them, soon?"

"We can call them in whenever Shihouin is done with her theatrics," Yamamoto shrugged.

"I would like to see my sister, now," Byakuya demanded.

"I agree," Juushirou added.

Yamamoto nodded to Soi Fon, who disappeared out a rear door.

Yoruichi looked back and forth from Juushiro to Byakuya. Byakuya appreciated her concern for his sister, and perhaps also his lieutenant, but this seemed strangely...excessive. She was usually such a pragmatic woman.

Soi Fon returned, trailed by the two people who, for good or for ill, had consumed his thoughts for the last three months. Renji's hair was longer, Rukia's was shorter, but otherwise, they looked the same as when he'd last seen them. There was a lightness in his chest, a dizziness in his head.

"Watch out, Kuchiki," Juushirou whispered in his ear. "You're _smiling_."

Byakuya would have schooled his expression, except that Rukia had already seen it. Her eyes danced, but she kept her own mouth in a serious, Kuchiki-like line as she and Abarai bowed to the captains, perfectly synchronized, despite their height difference.

"I hear you did very well on your mission," Yamamoto greeted them.

"That's what we heard, too, sir!" Renji barked. Something in Byakuya's chest shifted. There had been so little gratuitous shouting in the last three months. So little.

"Well, rest assured that those who know what you did appreciate it," the captain-commander assured them. "You will be pleased to hear that the Central 46 has come to its senses and allowed me to retain you."

"Thank you, sir!" they shouted in unison.

"I got your old captains in here to see if they'll take you back. I'm sure someone will take you up if they won't. Hitsugaya's been putting up a fuss the whole time you've been gone."

"I'll take Kuchiki back immediately, and three more of her, if you've got them," Juushirou broke in.

This time, Rukia did smile.

"Don't overwork her right away, Ukitake," Yamamoto warned. "I want the results of her lieutenant's exam within eight weeks, you hear me?"

Rukia paled. That wasn't very long.

"I'll give her plenty of time to work on it," Juushirou promised.

"And Kuchiki! You want this fellow back as well?"

With a sharp flick of his wrist, Byakuya tossed the Division 6 lieutenant's badge across the hall. It hit Renji in the chest and he bobbled it for a second before it lay safely cradled in his hands. "I wanted him back three months ago," Byakuya sneered. "I can't even see your desk, Lieutenant, it's so covered with paper."

"I'll get right on it, sir!" Renji replied, his voice filled with more joy over paperwork than even Byakuya thought was possible.

"I believe we're done here," Yamamoto decreed. "It sounds like it's long past time for everyone to get back to work." He and Soi Fon departed, ignoring the daggers Yoruichi shot into their backs with her eyes.

Rukia and Renji joined their captains, grinning like the fools they were.

"Welcome back, you two," Juushirou said warmly. "You wouldn't believe how much everyone has missed you."

"It feels like we didn't even leave," Rukia admitted.

"Hey, Yoruichi, long time, no see, what are you doing here?" Renji asked curiously.

Yoruichi's mouth pressed into a long line, and she finally said, "Just making sure you kids got a fair deal. How do you feel? Do you remember anything?"

"Only weird bits and snatches," Renji admitted. "I think we were near an ocean. Which I'm kinda sorry I can't remember. I've never seen an ocean."

"Yeah," Rukia agreed. "I keep thinking about the smell of the salt." She pushed up her sleeve. "I have a new scar, too."

Byakuya examined it. It had been a large wound, but well-healed. Fortunately, it was on a part of her body that was normally covered. "It appears they supplied you with qualified healers, at least."

"As happy as I am to have you back," Juushirou told her, "You should take the day off and go tell all your friends you're back."

"No," Byakuya disagreed. "You should take the day off and take tea with me, and then you may go tell your friends you are back." He thought for a moment. "You may also tell Abarai's friends that he's back, because he has too much work to take the day off."

"I'll have it done in no time, sir!" Renji announced. "I can't wait to get started!"

They've wiped his sanity along with his memories, Byakuya thought to himself.

Rukia's eyes were on the lieutenant's badge he was gripping. "Here, can I?" He handed it over, and they all watched as she slid it onto his arm and worked it up over his bicep. She flashed him a proud look. "There. Perfect."

He would never say so, but Byakuya agreed completely. It was about time for things to start going back to normal.

~ end

Author's Note:

I need you all to know that I fully intended to end this here and Creed arms into a sea of haters.

Then, my stalwart beta reader and faithful friend Luna12 told me it "needed closure" and it "made her sad," so I wrote a second epilogue, and of course she was correct, it's absolutely better that way. It makes a nice lead in to the next story in this series and also it's very cute. I even did an illustration for it. So be sure to thank her if you see her!

I'm still gonna make you wait a week for it because I'm a jerk.


	17. Epilogue 2

Epilogue 2

* * *

Rukia assumed the party was really for Renji. It was being held in the bar over near the Tenth Division where the lieutenants drank together, and it sounded like it was mostly his friends who were coming.

"That's because Matsumoto organized it," Kiyone flapped a hand at her. "And you're being very silly, everyone wants to see you."

Rukia blew her hair out of her face.

Sentarou bumped her shoulder. "Hanatarou said he would come, and you know he hates crowds even more than you do."

That made Rukia feel a little better. She was looking forward to a little Hanatarou time. Maybe she could find some quiet corner to hide in with him until enough time had passed that she could make a discreet exit.

Except that wasn't the way it went down at all.

A huge roar of "Kuchiki!" and "Welcome back!" went up when they walked in, and then people were slapping her on the back and buying her drinks. Renji wasn't even _there _yet.

"So, Kuchiki," Madarame said, sidling up to her. "You've been avoiding me."

"Not… on purpose?" she shrugged.

"You owe me a fight."

Oh, right, she did. She'd promised him a throwdown back when she and Renji were pulling the Advance Team together. That seemed like a million years ago.

Rukia cracked her knuckles. "Okay. You want to go out back?"

Matsumoto, who was already three sheets to the wind, shoved Ikkaku in the head. "Do not ruin my party, you _butt_."

"How does a fight ruin a party?" Ikkaku demanded.

"Because everyone wants to see Rukia and you're taking up too much of her attention," Matsumoto announced primly.

"How about Saturday?" Ikkaku grunted.

"We have The Brawl on Saturday," Yumichika reminded him.

"Aw, damn. Next Saturday?"

"Next Saturday," Rukia agreed. "I will destroy you."

A grin curled across Ikkaku's face. "I look forward to it."

Suddenly, there was another chorus of cheers, and Rukia looked up to see Hisagi and Rikichi hauling Renji in through the door.

"Look at this dumb jerk!" Hisagi shouted. "I had to pull him away from his paperwork!"

"There's so _much _of it," Renji excused, weakly.

People were jumping on him and punching him in the shoulder and calling him names. Rukia breathed out as a huge wave of relief washed over her. Maybe she could stop being the center of attention now. Renji's eyes scanned the crowd, and when they found her, he flashed her a big grin.

Rukia's ears burned. Here they were, at a party for all his friends who hadn't seen him in _months_, and the first person he looked for was her. What an utter doofus.

"Hey, Kuchiki."

Rukia looked over at the only person at this party shorter than her. "Oh, hello, Captain Hitsugaya, sir!"

Hitsugaya glanced around. "It's your party, so you can call me Toushirou. If you want. Tonight only."

She smiled. "Okay. Toushirou. What's up?"

"Just wanted to make sure you and Abarai were okay. That was some bullhockey. I didn't get wind of it until you were already gone. I wish I could have done something."

Rukia was shocked. "Captain, I…"

"I told you, it's Toushirou. Look, Kuchiki. You and I are a lot alike. We like to do stuff on our own, we don't like to depend on others. But all this Aizen crap went down because none of the captains trusted each other or played well together. I like you and Abarai. I'd like to see you both become captains someday."

"Renji, maybe," Rukia mumbled.

Hitsugaya regarded her out of the corner of his eye. "Modesty doesn't suit you. I've already agreed to proctor your exam in two months. It's about time. So, anyway: how are you?"

"We're fine, really," Rukia assured him. "And our own captains will watch out for us."

Hitsugaya raised one eyebrow. "I like your captain, Kuchiki, but he's been around here longer than you or I can even imagine. He has his own agenda. And I was there when your brother threw Renji in the brig for losing a fight."

"They're...a work in progress," Rukia admitted.

Hitsugaya regarded her carefully. "If you say so. But don't be afraid to come talk to me if you ever need anything. Anyway, go have fun at your own party. I won't be staying long. I'm also here to make sure Momo gets home okay."

"I'm glad to see she's up and around," Rukia said softly. "She was still recovering when we left. Renji will be so relieved."

They both looked over to where Renji and Momo were exclaiming over each other.

"She's doing much better," Toushirou agreed. "But she gets tired easily, and needs some reminders to take it easy. She was, ah, pretty worried about him, too."

They stood in awkward silence for a moment. It was no secret between them that were both in favor of Renji and Momo's friendship _in theory_, but it made them feel weirdly uncomfortable in practice.

Rukia tried to break some of the tension. "Oh, look, it appears we've gotten the same haircut. It looks much cuter on her." Rukia assumed that sometime over the course of her mystery mission, she had either set her hair on fire or gotten some sticky substance in it. At least the ends were neat, which probably just meant that she had conned Renji into trimming it for her. On Momo, it looked adorable, like a fresh start. Momo also had lovely side-swept bangs. Rukia could never pull off bangs.

Hitsugaya shrugged. "I dunno. Yours looks- What is Abarai _doing_?"

Rukia could tell exactly what he was doing. "It looks like he's trying to bench her. Don't worry, Kira is talking him out of it."

It was too late, Hitsugaya was off.

Rukia decided to leave Renji to his fate, and went looking for Hanatarou.

* * *

The party wore on quite late, especially for a weekday evening. Rukia had found Hanatarou, briefly, hiding out at a corner table with Rikichi. She would have been happy to hide out with him, but the best she could do was promise to meet him later in the week before she got hauled back into the fray. She didn't see much of Renji, either, although she assumed he was being similarly accosted.

Then, she found herself sitting alone at a table with Lieutenant Iba, who turned to her and said, "Did Abarai ever tell you about the time he and I went fishing out at Cattail Lake?"

Renji abruptly materialized out of absolutely nowhere and plopped down next to Rukia. "You tellin' stories, Iba? Is it storytime?"

"Did you… did you flash-step over here?" Iba asked, baffled. "Where did you _come _from?"

Renji elbowed Rukia. "You're going to love this story. This is the greatest of all Iba-Abarai stories." He narrowed his eyes at Iba. "I hope you weren't planning on telling her the censored version."

Iba looked away, scowling. "Well, I am _now_."

"Come _on! _What's the point of telling that story if you're going to leave out the stirring, poetic descriptions of my package?"

Iba rubbed his forehead. "Dammit, Abarai, I can't describe your junk to your...uh…"

"Captain's sister," Renji patiently provided.

"-to your _captain's sister_, with you sitting right here."

"Gosh," Renji sighed. "Too bad."

"You could leave," Iba suggested.

"Haven't seen Rukia all night," Renji replied.

"Three months on a mission together, and you aren't sick of her yet?" Iba asked skeptically.

"Not yet," Renji shrugged cheerfully.

"I'll just find Iba some other time," Rukia pointed out to Renji. "How the hell does your dong fit into a fishing story anyway?"

"That's what makes it such a good story," Renji replied, knowingly.

"You'll have to come out drinking with me, then," Iba pointed out. "I only tell that story when I've been drinking."

"Speaking of which," Renji slid a bottle of sake across the table. "Here. People keep giving me these, and I am drunk enough."

Iba slid it back. "You're hardly drunk at all. Also, Matsumoto made me and Hisagi the designated-Renjis, so you can get as drunk as you want."

"What is a 'designated Renji'?" Rukia demanded.

"It's the sap who stays sober enough to cut people off when they've had too much and to make sure everyone gets home safe," Iba explained.

"I guess they appoint someone when I'm not around," Renji admitted, sheepishly.

"Why are you embarrassed about it?" Rukia scolded him. "It sounds like a very kind thing to do." It sounded like a very _Renji _thing to do, to be honest.

Renji slapped his hands on the table. "Wait, that means I can go home whenever I want, right?"

"I guess," Iba shrugged.

"Crap, I am _going home_ _right now_."

"Laaaaaame," Iba groaned.

"Screw you, man, I haven't slept in my own bed in months. Or days. I don't even know anymore. Getting your memory wiped is terrible." He glanced at Rukia. "How long're you staying? I guess he's gonna start telling you that awful story again the minute I leave."

Rukia tilted her head to the side. "You know how much I love leaving parties early. Let's blow this joint." She straightened up to her full height. "You should let me walk you home, Lightweight."

"I _am _a little tipsy and you know what a shady neighborhood I live in." As if anyone even _littered _in the vicinity of the 6th. "We should find Matsumoto and tell her we're out."

"She's right here," Iba said, nudging the pile of shihakushou next to him. He reached across the table and grabbed the jug of sake back. "Oi, Rangiku, I got you some more booze."

"I didn't even see her there!" Renji yelped.

Matsumoto peeled her face off the table. "Did you get to the part where the boat capsizes yet?"

"No, Abarai showed up, and he's making off with Kuchiki."

"I just found out I'm not the designated Renji," Renji excused. "Which means I can go home whenever I want. So I'm going home."

"Renji," Matsumoto croaked. "I love you. I am so glad you're back. Please never leave again."

"I will never leave again," he promised. "I will be in the Squad 6 office every day until the end of the world. Because that's how long it is going to take me to finish all my paperwork."

"Sometimes," Matsumoto whispered, "I just hide it. Like in closets and things." She took a deep breath through her nose and managed to sit up. "Enjoy your early evening, Abarai. You're the designated Renji again on Saturday, you got it?"

"Perfect. Thanks for the party, Rangiku, it was real nice that everybody came out."

"Yes, thank you," Rukia echoed.

Matsumoto blinked, suddenly noticing Rukia. "Wait a second. You two really are leaving together? Are you gonna-?" She made a very illustrative hand gesture.

Rukia's face turned red, but Renji was clearly used to this. "I don't know. Which one of your hands was me?"

Matsumoto started laughing so hard that she began to snort.

"Yeah, she's done," Renji announced.

"Hey, stop doing my job of being you!" Iba scolded him. "I'm glad you're back, man. Wasn't the same without you. And Kuchiki?"

"Yeah?" Rukia asked hesitantly.

"I bet you got a lot of good stories about him, too, dontcha? We should hang out more."

"Boy, howdy," Rukia replied.

* * *

"You have a good time?" Rukia asked as they ambled toward the 6th. "Seemed like your kinda party."

"It was nice," Renji agreed. "It was weird, o' course, since everyone missed us so much, and I don't even remember being gone. And life going on without us, the new captains, Momo being up and about."

Rukia looked up at him. "But?"

He stretched his arms up and interlaced his fingers behind his head. "Right around quittin' time, before Hisagi showed up, I got to missing you real bad. Like maybe I woulda preferred a quiet dinner, just you an' me." He looked down at her. "Don't tell anyone else I said that."

It occurred to Rukia that even though, in their minds, no time had passed, something had changed in their hearts. Before they left, he wouldn't have said something like that to her, or asked her to keep a secret for him. Before, they had been friends, sure, but they had maintained a certain distance. Maybe because their hearts hadn't finished healing from their long separation, or maybe just for propriety's sake. But this felt right, Renji just saying what was in his heart. And to be honest, she had kinda missed him, too, even after just one day.

"We must have kept some sort of schedule," Rukia suggested, "that your subconscious still remembers, even if you don't. It's just what you're used to."

"Must be," Renji agreed.

"I know you're real busy catching up on work," Rukia started. "But I could come by for lunch tomorrow. If you wanted."

"If you have time, that'd be real nice, thanks." He smiled softly at her.

Rukia found herself smiling back.

"Hey! Chuckleheads!"

Rukia and Renji practically jumped out of their skin as a dark silhouette stood up on a nearby rooftop.

Renji clutched his chest. "Dammit, Yoruichi, we are too drunk for you to be sneakin' up on us like that."

Yoruichi jumped down from the spot where she had been crouching. "Sorry about that." She wrinkled her nose distastefully. "That's why I'm here, actually. To apologize."

"For what?" Rukia frowned.

Yoruichi sighed heavily. "Soi Fon shouldn't have wiped your memories. It was wrong. I didn't think she'd really do it. It was crummy and I'm sorry."

Renji shrugged. "It's not that big a deal. We're fine. Everyone at Squad 2 made it sound like the mission was a real drag, anyway."

Rukia tilted her head to the side, her forehead creased. "Is there something...that was worth remembering?"

Yoruichi sucked her teeth for a long moment. "You trained an awful lot, for one. Some of that may come back- bodies remember better than brains. I owe each of you a hakuda lesson. I taught you something and I owe it to you to make sure you don't lose it. And…" Yoruichi drew in a deep breath and then let it out again. "And it was a crummy situation and you two were just really friggin' there for each other." She shook her head. "Gaaah, this so sappy! I just needed to make sure you jerks know how lucky you are." Her face looked deeply uncomfortable.

"Wow," Rukia commented. "Good job saying all that without bursting into flames."

Renji ignored her sarcasm. "Yoruichi," he said seriously. "Thanks. But we know." He nudged Rukia in the shoulder. "Right?"

Rukia looked up at him, taken aback by the sincerity in his voice. "Yeah, of course," she agreed, her heart squeezing a little at the admission.

Yoruichi was playing with something she had pulled out of her jacket pocket. "Well, don't take it for granted. Also…" she looked off to the side. "I visited you guys at New Year's. We got hella drunk. Anyway, I found this in my camera roll in the middle of, like, seventeen blurry pictures of my own tits. I don't even remember taking it, I swore you guys were in your- uh, New Year's outfits the whole time." She shoved a photo at each of them.

They were two copies of the same picture, mostly in focus. Renji was flexing one arm, with Rukia slung over his bicep. They weren't looking at the camera, they were looking at each other with huge, stupid, drunk grins plastered all over their faces.

Rukia studied the picture for a long time, thoughtfully.

"Thanks, Yor-" Renji started to say. "Aaand, she's gone."

Rukia looked up. Sure enough, Yoruichi had ghosted.

"That was weird," Renji commented. "Doesn't seem like Yoruichi to make a special point of awkwardly complimenting us on our friendship. I wonder what that was really about."

Rukia's brain was too tired and drunk to go down that road. Instead, she blurted out, "I think this is the first picture I have ever seen of just the two of us together."

Renji blinked and looked down again at the picture in his hand. There were no cameras in Inuzuri. He hadn't really appreciated the value of photos until after Rukia was gone. They had plenty of pictures of each other- she had an almost preternatural gift for having her phone at the ready whenever he did something colossally stupid. They were in some group photos, too, where Rukia always got pushed to the front and Renji got shuffled to the back because of their heights. But just the two of them? "I think you're right," he frowned.

"We should start taking selfies," Rukia blurted out. "All the time. Like Matsumoto does."

Renji snorted. "Okay. If you say so."

She stared at him. "You have to take them, though. Because of, you know. My tiny arms." She shoved her phone at him.

"What, like right now?"

"Why not?"

"It's dark? We probably look like crap- well, I look like crap, you always look good-"

"Abarai," she scowled. "What would you give for a badly lit, blurry picture of us and the guys back in Inuzuri? Or you and me in our shiny new uniforms on our first day at the Academy?"

Without another word, he grabbed her by the back of her kosode, and hefted her up so their faces were roughly level. "Are you smiling?"

"I'm smiling!"

He took the picture, and they examined it together. It was terribly overexposed from the flash, they were both smirking like smart alecks, and they both looked much drunker than they felt. "Well, that's what we look like, I guess," Renji declared.

"You could have taken a knee instead of holding me like a sack of rice," Rukia griped.

"I don't see why I would do that," he replied flippantly, texting himself the photo before returning her phone. "There you go: Kuchiki and Abarai, back from the war, officers in good standing once again."

"Y'know," Rukia said slowly, as they resumed their meandering journey back toward the Sixth. "Everyone keeps talking about things going back to normal, but I don't want to go back to normal."

"No?" he asked mildly.

"What was normal, anyway? Back before Ichigo crashed into my life? Back when we didn't talk to each other, and Brother hated me, and I was miserable? Forget that. I'm… I'm gonna take the lieutenant's exam, Renji."

"I know," he nodded. "When we're both lieutenants, they better frigging watch out."

"Frigging unstoppable," Rukia agreed.

"And…" Renji said slowly. "I'm gonna earn your brother's respect."

"Are you now?"

"Yeah. Mark my words: He's gonna refer to me as 'my trusted lieutenant' or least 'my basically competent lieutenant.'"

"I believe in you," she declared, punching him in the arm. "I bet he even invites you to some family crap."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves."

"It's a low bar. He loves inviting people to family events. It's the price that you pay. Family events suck."

"You'll be there, though, right?"

"Yup. Yup, yup, yup."

"Well, then, those Kuchikis better friggin' watch out, too."

"This is what we always dreamed of, y'know," Rukia pointed out.

"Ruinin' rich peoples' social occasions?"

"Being shinigami. Being strong. Being somebodies."

"Being together," he added.

"We didn't have to dream about that," she said a little sadly. "I never thought we wouldn't be."

"Well," he shrugged. "Let's not be." His foggy brain tried to parse the double negatives. "Not together that is. Ever again."

She looked up at him and smiled. "Deal."


End file.
